Canada's Early Nuclear Policy: Fate, Chance, and Character 9780773568617

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Illustrations
1 Introduction
2 Prelude to a Sabre Dance
3 Canada's Wartime Nuclear Project
4 Hiroshima and Its Aftermath
5 The International Option
6 The Alliance Option
7 The Bilateral Option
8 The Plowshares Option
9 Variations on a Theme
10 The Ties That Bind
11 The Puzzle Reconsidered
Notes
Bibliography
Index
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
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X
Z

Citation preview

Canada's Early Nuclear Policy Fate, Chance, and Character

The advent of nuclear weapons introduced a complex new factor into world politics, drawing a line through history and ensuring that international relations would never be the same. By both accident and design, Canada was a central player in the new nuclear era, as countries grappled with the implications of this revolutionary new development. Canada's decision, unique among pioneer atomic powers, not to acquire a nuclear arsenal has been used to buttress widely differing political agendas, while the factors that shaped the policy-making process have been largely ignored. In Canada's Early Nuclear Policy Brian Buckley weaves information from a number of disciplines to shed new light on Canada's early policies. Filling a long-standing gap in the national story, he explores the country's role in the early postwar period, cautioning against simplistic explanations and pointing to the continuing roles of contingency and personality in decision making. While the threat of nuclear war has receded in recent years, the number of states with nuclear weapons, the number of weapons, and their killing power are all far greater than they were five decades ago. Virtually all the issues that emerged fifty years ago remain on the international agenda and are as relevant today as ever. BRIAN BUCKLEY retired from the Canadian Foreign Service after a distinguished thirty-year career. He is the author of The News Media and Foreign Policy: An Exploration, a contributor to Ethnicity and Conflict in the Former Yugoslavia and Foreign and Security Policy in the Information Age, and a fellow in the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies, Dalhousie University.

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Canada's Early Nuclear Policy Fate, Chance, and Character BRIAN BUCKLEY

McGill-Queen 's University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca

© McGill-Queen's University Press 2000 ISBN 07735-2077-5 Legal deposit fourth quarter 2000 Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. McGill-Queen's University Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities. We also acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program.

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Buckley, Brian Canada's early nuclear policy: fate, chance and character Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7735-2077-5 1. Nuclear weapons - Government policy - Canada. 2. Nuclear energy — Government policy — Canada. 3. Canada - Military policy. 4. Canada - Foreign relations - 1945i. Tide. Fc6o2.B83 2000 355.8'25i ig'o97i COO-QOO212-X

F1O34.2.B83 2OOO

This book was typeset by Typo Litho Composition Inc. in 10/12 Baskerville.

Contents

Acknowledgments vii Illustrations following page viii 1 Introduction

3

2 Prelude to a Sabre Dance

11

3 Canada's Wartime Nuclear Project 4 Hiroshima and Its Aftermath 35 5 The International Option

56

6 The Alliance Option 76 7 The Bilateral Option

83

8 The Plowshares Option

96

9 Variations on a Theme

106

10 The Ties That Bind

123

11 The Puzzle Reconsidered Notes 141 Bibliography Index

167

161

130

21

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Acknowledgments

Much of the work underpinning this text was carried out while I was attached to Dalhousie University as Foreign Service visitor for the academic year 1997/98. I wish to extend my appreciation to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and to the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies at Dalhousie for giving me the freedom, encouragement, and material support to initiate a project that had been tickling my curiosity for some fifteen years. I am indebted to Professors David Black, Frank Harvey, Dan Middlemiss, Denis Stairs, and Gil Winham as well as Fred Crickard, Peter Haydon, and Ed Tummers, Faculty Fellows at the Centre, for their unfailingly constructive comments and advice. Not only did their contributions result in a stronger final text, they produced a number of memorable lunches at the faculty club! I wish, as well, to express my gratitude to Dr George Lindsey of Ottawa, oc, PHD, for his efforts to ensure that my layman's understanding of the physics associated with the story bears at least a passing resemblance to the truth. In addition, during my three research expeditions to Ottawa, the personnel at the National Archives of Canada, notably Paul Marsden, Greg Eamon, Eva Major-Marothy, Jill Delaney, Marc Bisaillon, and the young women of the circulation desk, were unfailingly courteous and helpful to this "stranger in their midst." I also wish to thank Philip Cercone, Joan McGilvray, Margaret Levey, and Ron Curtis of McGill-Queen's for dieir wise council and assistance in converting a raw manuscript into a publishable text. While whatever merits this book possesses can be readily attributed to others,

viii

Acknowledgments

the weaknesses and errors that remain are mine alone. In absolving those named above, I owe it as well to Foreign Affairs and to the University to "hold them harmless." The views expressed are entirely my own; no one else should be asked to bear responsibility for them.

Washington Tripartite Conference, November 1945. Principal participants (from left), Clement Attlee (United Kingdom), Harry Truman (United States), W.L. Mackenzie King (Canada). National Archives of Canada, 0-23273

Washington Tripartite Conference, November, 1945. Participants (standing, from left), Vannevar Bush, T.C. Rowan, J.C.Jacob, C.A. Eaton, B. McMahon, L.B. Pearson, J. Byrnes, S. Bloom, W. Leahy; (seated, from left) Clement Attlee, Harry Truman, W.L. Mackenzie King. National Archives of Canada, 0-23283

"Ghee! And we only ordered apple pie!" Toronto Daily Star, June 1946. Les Callan, National Archives of Canada, 0-145589. Courtesy Mrs Les Callan

"Cain't lock that stable yet, Maw!" Toronto Daily Star, June 1946. Les Callan, National Archives of Canada. 0-145587. Courtesy Mrs Les Callan

"Objective for 1947." Toronto Daily Star, January 1947. Les Callan, National Archives of Canada, 0-145588. Courtesy Mrs Les Callan

Facing page: Bernard L. Welland, "The Atom and the Sovereign State," Freedom and Union (January 1947). National Archives of Canada, Claxton Papers

JSBB0OM & UNION

January 1947

The Atom and the Sovereign State By BERNARD L. WELIAND The Atom and the Sovereign Scate Were walking hand in hand; They wept like anything to see Such thickly settled land: "If this -were only cleared away," They said, "It would be grand! Four other Homos followed them And yet another four; And chick and fast they came at East And more, and more, and more— All marching through their dries vast, They poured from every door.

"But wait a bit," the Homos cried, "Before we have a war; For some of us are quite fatigued From two we had before." "So sorry," said the Sovereign State, "But you've become a bore."

"O Homo, come and play with us!" The Atom did beseech. "A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, Forget Bikini Beach; We cannot do with more than two, (To give a bomb to each)."

The Atom and the Sovereign State Talked on, both con and pro, And then they shouted loud and long, "You dirty So-and-So"; While all the little Homos stood And trembled in a row.

"A load of bombs," the Atom said, "Is what we chiefly need; Some poison gas and germs besides Are very good indeed— Now, if you're ready, Homos dear, "The mop-up wilt proceed"

And two young Homos hurried up Both eager for the treat: Their coats were torn, their faces worn, Their shoes were far from neat— And this was so, became, you know They'd been dose to defeat

"The time has passed," the Atom said, 'To talk of all these things: Of blocs—world states—8c Union Now— Of dictators—and kings— And why the peace was never kept— And whether pigs have wings."

"It seems a shame," the Atom said, "To play them such a trick, After they made me what I am And made me kinda quick!" The Sovereign State said nothing but "Just drop another 'stick'"

"If seven planes with seven bombs Swept it for hall a year Do you suppose," the Atom said, "That we could get it clear?" "Let's try it," said the Sovereign State, "Whom do we have to fear?"

"I weep for them," the Atom said: "I deeply sympathize." With sobs and tears he atomized Homos of every size, Holding his pocket-handkerchief Before his streaming eyes. "O Homo," cried the Sovereign State, "You've had a pleasant run! Shall we begin from scratch again?" But answer came there none— And this was scarcely odd, because They'd killed off every one.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY IRiS BEATTY JOHNSON

"He's going to need a woman." Vancouver Sun, January [?] 1950. Lyman Meadows, National Archives of Canada, 0-145258

"Filbert!!" September, 1953. Vancouver Sun, Len Morris, National Archives of Canada, 0-145257. Courtesy Mr S.L. Norris

"Atomic Plant." Vancouver Sun, November 1954. Len Norris, National Archives of Canada, 0-145578. Courtesy Mr S.L. Norris

"Stop them before it's too late!" Toronto Daily Star, June 1956. Les Callan, National Archives of Canada, 0-145586. Courtesy Mrs Les Callan

"Wanderer of the Wasteland." Toronto Daily Star, 1Q57[?] Les Callan, National Archives of Canada, 0-145585. Courtesy Mrs Les Callan

"Who's Nuts?" TorvntoDaily Star, January 1958. Les Callan, National Archives of Canada, 0-145583. Courtesy Mrs Les Callan

"To add to the brew." Toronto Daily Star, October 1958. Les Callan, National Archives of Canada, €-145581. Courtesy Mrs Les Callan

"He may never know what hit him." Toronto Daily Star, December 1958. Les Callan, National Archives of Canada, 0-145580. Courtesy Mrs Les Callan

Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

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i Introduction The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter, It isn't just one of your holiday games. T.S. Eliot, "The Naming of Cats," in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

This study is an expedition into the recent past. It addresses the following question: in the years immediately after World War II, when "atomic" weapons were widely thought to bolster a state's power and prestige, why did Canada evidently choose to forgo its own independent nuclear arsenal? I hope that our voyage will yield a few insights into the role of contingency in the affairs of states; that it will help to explain why governments adopt the policies that they do; and, perhaps, that it will improve our understanding of the nuclear nonproliferation regime. The latter has once again been thrust into a position of prominence on the international political agenda following the demonstration in 1998, first by India and subsequently by Pakistan, of their long-suspected covert nuclear weapons capability. It is not inconceivable that the experience of Canada, the only original atomic power not to deploy its own weapon, will have something to offer in broadening our understanding of why states obtain or forego nuclear weapons. Chiefly, however, the expedition is being mounted for the most selfish of reasons. I have long thought that Canada's early role in nuclear matters constituted an intriguing chapter in our unfolding national story, and I wanted to try to tell it. THE STATE

What curious creatures are states. In size they may constitute a few dozen square kilometres or several million; in composition, a fraction of a nation or a score; in capacity, an ability to explore the stars or

4 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

cause a famine; in impact, the flowering of human potential or a bloody reign of terror. Nothing of value upon the earth, or under it or above it, escapes their watchful scrutiny or remains for long unclaimed. With the family, the state appears to be humanity's most pervasive involuntary organization. While debate over the origins and functions of the state continues, it does appear that if human societies are to survive and prosper, they must be organized and that organization cannot long be maintained without force. A core feature of the state is the monopoly that it claims on the legitimate exercise of coercion within its boundaries. As social animals, we are all sustained by a vast and intricate web of associations and relationships that give meaning, value, and structure to our lives. Only the state, however, asserts a right - and possesses the power - to deprive us of our property, our liberty, and, in certain circumstances, even our lives. Yet rarely has this assertion been challenged, at least since anarchism went out of fashion. Individuals may renounce their allegiance to a given state and go to great lengths to replace it with another, but the truly "stateless" person is almost insuperably handicapped in the pursuit of a meaningful human existence. Ask those wretched of the earth who have had their citizenship stripped from them. The antecedents of the present system of territorial states stretch as far back as human history can be traced. (Indeed, the administrative needs of ancient political structures have often contributed greatly through the records they generated - to our understanding of earlier human societies.) The current pattern, however, is a relatively recent innovation dating back no more than three or four centuries. The Westphalian system, as it is sometimes called in an allusion to the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648,* envisages the state as a form of human organization in which authority over a given population within a defined territory is exercised by a government (a sovereign) that is answerable to no legal authority beyond itself and that alone may enter into formal relations with other sovereigns. Although the world of the twenty-first century differs greatly from that of 1648, the key elements of population, territory, government, sovereignty, and, arguably, their recognition by the rest of the international community remain the core attributes of the state - at least in its international dimensions.2 Some commentators have begun to question whether the foregoing summary still offers an adequate framework within which to consider the behaviour of states, whether it does not oversimplify an increasingly complex reality. My own preference is to interpret the actions of states in terms of their feline characteristics, a predilection that accounts for the leitmotif that runs through these chapters. Others take matters much more seriously. Robert Cooper has recently suggested in

5

Introduction

a thoughtful, extended essay that the Westphalian system effectively ended in 1989 with the collapse of the Soviet empire and that something qualitatively different has begun to emerge. His views are worth close attention, as they offer a useful corrective to the view of states as essentially similar organisms, locked forever beneath the pale star of necessity in an unending struggle for survival. Mr Cooper suggests that the world becomes a somewhat more intelligible place if it is seen as a mix of premodern, modern, and postmodern elements. The first comprises those zones (sometimes described by other observers as "failed states") where chaos reigns. The state may exist as a name on a map, but it "no longer fulfils Weber's criterion of having the legitimate monopoly on the use offeree."3 Very few regions of the world actually qualify for membership in this category, but there are, he maintains, wide swaths of Africa and the former Soviet Union that are best interpreted through this lens. The modern, where the classical state system remains intact, constitutes the second category. Regions in this category are for the most part orderly but dangerous. "States retain the monopoly of force and may be prepared to use it against each other. If there is order ... it is because of a balance-ofpower or because of the presence of hegemonic states which see an interest in maintaining the status quo."4 Force remains the final arbiter. "It is not that ... might is right so much as that right is not particularly relevant; might and raison d 'etat are the things that matter. In international relations this is the world of the calculus of interests and forces described by Machiavelli and by Clausewitz."5 Interestingly, Mr Cooper suggests that our thinking about international relations is still dominated by the concepts, values, and vocabulary of the modern world, even though they have lost whatever claim to generality they may once have possessed. Mr Cooper's third category is the postmodern, consisting largely of the established European democracies, with a few outposts (notably Canada) elsewhere in the "developed world." Here the modern state system is collapsing, but unlike the premodern, it is collapsing into greater order rather than disorder. Thus, the postmodern world is characterized by "the breaking down of the distinction between domestic and foreign affairs; mutual interference in (traditional) domestic affairs and mutual surveillance; the rejection offeree for resolving disputes and the consequent codification of [self-enforced] rules of behaviour ... the growing irrelevance of borders [thanks to missiles, cars, and satellites] ... security is based on transparency, mutual openness, interdependence, and mutual vulnerability."6 The author makes no exaggerated claims respecting his taxonomy the future is full of surprises - and enters several important caveats

6 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

respecting its application. Thus he recognizes that the emergence of a post-Westphalian state system has only begun and may yet be stymied or reversed; that the territorial state, because of its success, will remain for the foreseeable future the fundamental unit of international relations; and that postmodern states, existing in what is largely a hostile environment, neglect their defences at their peril. Mr Cooper's approach is interesting for the light it sheds on the manner and direction in which the international state system that has prevailed for the last three hundred and fifty years may be evolving. It is difficult, however, to avoid the impression that "postmodern" behaviour is a luxury open to very few. The extent to which these tabbies truly have been domesticated remains open to doubt. The claws may be sheathed, but they still appear to be available if needed. The reader is left with an uneasy feeling that if states in this category were once again faced with real issues of national survival, their postmodern attributes would vanish like the snows of spring. Whether a new state system has or has not begun to emerge, considerations of power and security have long been seen as key preoccupations of states. There is little reason to think this will soon change. While the threat of mutual nuclear annihilation may have encouraged the development of "postmodern behaviour" by some states, it has also ensured the centrality of national security concerns. Nuclear weapons represent a qualitatively different capacity to inflict damage on an enemy in wartime. From a classical realpolitik perspective, given the unvarying importance in a state's relations with other international actors of the high policy issues of national security, it might be expected that any state capable of acquiring an independent capacity to use nuclear weapons - absent other overriding considerations - should be strongl predisposed to do so. The historical record however tells quite a different story. Since its inception in the late 19508 and early 19605 the nuclear nonproliferation regime has expanded greatly, with state after state concluding that its interests, despite the weaknesses and inequities of the regime, were better served by forswearing the acquisition of nuclear arms.7 It may be argued that many, perhaps most, of these decisions represent little more than the exercise of prudence. For many governments the choice was straightforward, since their capacity to "go nuclear" was extremely modest and a decision to launch themselves into such an adventure would have been seen by their citizens, concerned neighbours, and others as an enormous misallocation of scarce national resources. Moreover, in contrast to the 19505, when possession of nuclear weapons was regularly associated with great-power status, their possession these days draws little but opprobrium. In the calculus of

7 Introduction

realpolitik, then, far better to strengthen international normative barriers to the use of such weapons, render more difficult a competitor's acquisition of them, and gain access to the peaceful uses of the atom than to maintain an empty claim to a right that one cannot exercise. There are problems with this analysis, but even allowing it for the sake of argument, other, larger difficulties loom. It does little, for example, to explain Canada's attitude toward nuclear weapons. Here is a country diat not only had the resources needed to establish its own weapons program but possessed that capacity from the outset of the nuclear age, long before international opinion had set its face firmly against such weapons. And yet there appears to be no evidence that Canada ever seriously pursued the option that lay open before it to enhance its power and prestige. Before proceeding, it may be worth exploring briefly the position that Canada occupied on the international scene at the dawn of the nuclear age. C A N A D A IN 1 945

Most of us have forgotten, if we ever really knew, that Canada emerged from World War II as a major military power in its own right. Almost i. i million Canadians had served in the three fighting services during the conflict.8 Moreover, in qualitative terms they had shown in the air war and in the land campaigns in Sicily, the Italian peninsula, France, Holland, Belgium, and Germany, as well as in the naval struggle in the Atlantic, that they were the equal of anyone under arms. Combat hardened, disciplined, and effectively led, their contribution to the victory in Europe was exceeded only by that of the Soviets, Americans, and British. That contribution was paid in blood; as a percentage of national population Canada's war casualties, while smaller than the losses of Britain or the continental European powers on whose soil the hostilities had largely taken place, were substantially higher than those of that other major non-European participant, the United States. Nor was Canada's contribution solely military. Driven by the demands of war, the country's economic capacity grew quickly. In what was perhaps the most material-intensive war ever fought, Canada was an important source of the munitions, military supplies, food, and raw materials that kept Britain (and to a lesser extent other Commonwealth members, the Soviet Union, and China) in the war. Between 1940 and 1944 Canada contributed some $7.5 billion in goods and services to the British war effort, an amount well in excess of the Canadian gross national product in 1939. Almost half of this huge sum was donated freely and widiout conditions.9

8

Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

By war's end the effects were there for all to see. Production from Canada's factories, farms, and forests had increased dramatically during the war. Like the United States, but in contrast to Britain and every other European belligerent, Canada's economy in the immediate postwar period was far richer, stronger, and more sophisticated than it had been in 1939. National production had doubled during the war years, and even the population base - despite the wartime losses - had increased significantly. The demands of the European invasion had strained relations between English- and French-speaking Canadians, but tensions had been eased, though not resolved, by war's end. Politically the country enjoyed a far greater level of internal stability than most other former belligerents. Canada's rulers of the day, moreover, were exquisitely aware of the realities of international power. As Denis Stairs suggests, concerning Canadian foreign policy formulation in the early postwar period, "[t]he ingredients of power might vary from one context to another, and their implications for the conduct of any particular relationship might be subject to a kind of technical debate ... But whatever the elements of power ... might actually be, everyone knew that they almost always counted most. They were the hard currencies of international relations."10 True, Prime Minister Mackenzie King had made little effort after the American entry into the war "to carve out for Canada a special place of influence in the councils of the great"11 - despite the magnitude of the country's contribution to the war effort. Others however had sought to assert Canada's claims more vigorously. The "functional idea" that was to become a touchstone of Canada's postwar multilateral diplomacy - the idea that representation in an international organization should reflect the capacity of a given country to contribute to the mandate of the body - grew largely from the clash between Canada's ambitions and Anglo-American reluctance to concede to Canada a full seat at the decision-making table.12 Canada's international position in 1939 contrasted sharply with the place it occupied in the immediate postwar period. "But by 1945 the world was different and Canada with it. Great powers were prostrate; new giants had stepped forward. Canada was no giant, but as the one major industrial and agricultural nation other than the United States to emerge from the war without physical destruction on its soil, Canada had a unique opportunity to advance its power and influence. During the war the struggle for increased influence had had limited success; the struggle would continue into the peace."13

g

Introduction

CANADA AND THE ATOM

In the area of atomic research, Canada, by a curious twist of wartime fortune, had become one of the three wartime allies whose efforts made possible the production of the atomic bomb. If in 1945 the United States alone had fully mastered the science and the technology of weapons production, Canada and Britain understood the science and possessed some of the requisite technology. The first nuclear reactor to become operational outside the United States was Canada's ZEEP (Zero Energy Experimental Pile) at Chalk River, which achieved a self-sustaining nuclear reaction in September 1945. In July 1947 the much larger and more powerful NRX (National Research Experimental) reactor went critical and quickly demonstrated that among its many other attributes it was a very efficient producer of plutonium (one of the several possible fissile - or fissionable - materials from which a nuclear explosive can be fashioned). Before the decade was out Canadians had independently mastered the extraction of plutonium and uranium 233 (another fissile material) from irradiated rods, a major milestone - following the capacity to generate fissionable material - on the path to a weapons production capability. By the time the chemical extraction plants were wound down in the mid-1950s, they had produced about 17 kilograms of separated plutonium and half a kilogram of 11-233,H enough for at least one, and possibly two, nuclear devices. Moreover, well into the late 19408 the Canadian air force, the fourth largest among the Allies in 1945, retained a strategic offensive capability (in contrast to the more limited tactical/defensive one subsequently adopted in the contexts of NATO and NORAD). In the early postwar period, therefore, a careful observer would have been hard pressed not to describe Canada as a "threshold nuclear state." Here was a rich, technologically advanced country, convinced that it was moving up in the international league, that had mastered all of the scientific and many of the technical obstacles to the independent production of a weapon. Moreover, the weapon was of such a nature that it could enhance Canada's international prestige, massively increase the capacity of its armed forces to inflict damage on an opponent, and offset the country's chief strategic weakness - its limited population base. While the initial cost of such a program would have strained the country's economy, it was not beyond Canada's reach. The American Manhattan Project had cost some $2 billion. It, however, had been a "belts and braces" operation in which all possible routes to a bomb had been explored, with little regard to cost. The British would spend only a fraction of that amount in their pursuit of an independent nuclear arsenal. Moreover, Canada had already

i o Canada' s Early Nuclear Policy

donated far more to the British war effort and would shortly spend two and a half times the cost of the Manhattan Project in the conventional rearmament program it undertook when the Korean War broke out. And yet within months of the first atomic detonations, Canada had disavowed any intention of manufacturing nuclear weapons, a position diat it has maintained through all of the vicissitudes of the past fifty years. The nonmilitary nature of Canada's atomic endeavours was regularly asserted, in contrast to tiiat of others. As C.J. Mackenzie, one of the architects of the Canadian program noted in a 1953 address: "Canada is the only country in the world with sizeable atomic energy establishments where no bombs are being made, and where all the diinking and planning is focussed on peacetime aspects."15 Moreover, down through the years Canada has played a consistent and important part in virtually every multilateral diplomatic forum available, seeking to rachet back the vertical escalation of nuclear arms and to limit their horizontal proliferation. Canada was among the earliest and most forceful proponents of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which opened for signature in 1968, and readily renounced its national right to acquire nuclear weapons. This is unusual behaviour; a state faced with an apparent opportunity to increase its power and its prestige might be expected to exploit it. Were there other, hidden factors that explain Canada's position? Or was its behaviour truly abnormal, a Canadian variant perhaps of the dieme "No sex please, we're British"? The balance of this book will be devoted to the examination of this puzzle.16 It will focus on the evolution of Canadian nuclear policy in its formative years, predominantly from the wartime birth of the Canadian nuclear program to approximately 1955.

2 Prelude to a Sabre Dance The greatest magicians have something to learn From Mr Mistoffelees' Conjuring Turn. T.S. Eliot, "Mr Mistoffelees," in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

The choices that Canada made - and, equally important, did not make - in the early postwar period were heavily influenced by the role the war had thrust upon the country as a participant in Allied efforts to win the race to develop a nuclear weapon. It was not a role that Canada had sought out but one that circumstances, often in the guise of the complex and ambivalent nature of Anglo-American nuclear relations, had placed before it. The story of the development of what was then referred to as the "A-bomb" has been related many times by other, more qualified writers elsewhere. Moreover, a detailed history of the developments in physics that led to nuclear arms is beyond the scope of this book, and my competence. That said, however, a sketch of major developments must be attempted if any sense is to be made of the Canadian role in the wartime program.1 PRE — W O R L D WAR I

In the late nineteenth century it was generally accepted that all matter was composed of atoms: small, hard, indestructible spheres. Differences were known to exist in the weight and size of atoms and in their abilities to combine with others to form an immense variety of chemical compounds. It was believed, however, that all atoms could be classified into less than a hundred elements, which constituted the building blocks of all matter. The atoms of each element were thought to be uniform, impenetrable, and indestructible: minuscule "billiard balls" that combined with one another in various ways to form the world around us.

12

Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

Toward the end of the century, however, several tantalizing hints emerged to suggest that the atom was a far more complex and mysterious entity than previously had been thought. In 1895 Wilhelm Roentgen in Germany, while experimenting with cathode rays, accidentally discovered new radiations so puzzling that he labelled them "x-rays" to call attention to their unknown nature. Further experimentation revealed that the previously unobserved phenomenon had a curious capacity to penetrate opaque bodies (a quality that medicine would soon put to good practical effect). The existence and the properties of x-rays, however, appeared to lie beyond the then current understanding of physics and chemistry. The mystery deepened the following year. Roentgen had noted that in his cathode apparatus some fluorescence of the glass discharge tube had been associated with the production of x-rays. The Frenchman Henri Becquerel set out to determine whether other materials known to fluoresce might not also produce "emanations" similar to x-rays. Having accidentally placed wrapped photographic plates next to a quantity of uranium salts, Becquerel subsequently opened the plates and found that they had become fogged. He quickly established that the agent that had exposed the plates was an inherent property of the uranium salts and that, like x-rays, it could ionize (electrically charge) gases. Adding intrigue to mystery, however, were Becquerel's findings that the phenomenon produced no measurable change in the salts themselves and that it operated continuously and independently of normal chemical processes. Marie Curie assigned the term "radioactivity" to this apparently spontaneous emission of ionizing radiation and, with her husband Pierre, took up the search for other materials that possessed it. Their efforts led to the identification of thorium as another possessor of the peculiar property and to the discovery of two new elements, polonium (named in honour of Poland, Curie's homeland) and radium (a far more potent source of radioactivity than uranium). Of equal significance, the Curies established that radioactivity had to be understood as an atomic, rather than a chemical, property. The billiard ball conception of the atom was entirely inadequate to explain the strange and subtle phenomena that physicists were uncovering at a rapidly quickening pace. Fortunately, help was on the way. Debate about the nature of cathode rays (were they waves in the ether or electrically charged atoms?) led JJ. Thomson, in Britain, to the insight that the differences could be reconciled by introducing the notion that the rays were neither the one nor the other but rather charged particles much smaller than atoms. In 1897 he demonstrated the existence of a particle bearing a negative electric charge and

13 Prelude to a Sabre Dance

possessing a mass of approximately one two-thousandth of the hydrogen atom. Physics' first subatomic particle, the electron, made its appearance and scientists' understanding of the atom took a major step forward. The following year one of Thomson's most gifted students, a young New Zealander named Ernest Rutherford, left Britain for Montreal, where he took up the position of professor of experimental physics at McGill University, a post he was to hold until his return to Britain in 1907. Over the next several years Rutherford and Frederick Soddy, another young graduate (in chemistry, from Oxford), would substantially expand the frontiers of knowledge. Building on Rutherford's earlier idea that the emanations from uranium comprised two distinct types of rays, alpha and beta (a third type of radiation, the gamma ray, was independently identified by Villard in France), Rutherford and Soddy developed, early in the new century, a theory of "atomic disintegration." While they consciously eschewed use of the term "transmutation" for fear of being dismissed as modernday alchemists, their work did in fact demonstrate that radioactive bombardment was capable of transforming one element into another. One important implication was that the structure of the atom was much more complex and enigmatic than it previously had been thought to be. Rather than being a single, uniform, indivisible entity, the atom that would emerge some years later from Rutherford's work (and that of the Danish theoretical physicist Niels Bohr) consisted largely of empty space. At the centre lay a dense, positively charged nucleus that accounted for almost all of its mass, while far beyond, at least 100,000 nuclear radii away, circled a number of negatively charged electrons, just sufficient to balance the positively charged nucleus. The following image illustrates just how bizarre the atom appeared to be: "[IJmagine a pinhead, perhaps a millimeter across, at the center of St Paul's cathedral, surrounded by a cloud of microscopic dust motes far out in the dome of the cathedral, say 100 meters away. The pinhead represents the atomic nucleus; the dust motes are its retinue of electrons. That is how much empty space there is in the atom - and all of the seemingly solid objects in the material world are made up of these empty spaces, held together by electric charges."2 Rutherford came early to an understanding of the enormous energy locked up in the heart of the atom. In a work from 1904 he calculated that "the total energy emitted from one gram of radium during its changes is about one million times greater than that involved in any molecular change ... There is thus reason to believe that an enormous store of latent energy is resident in the atoms of the radio-elements."3 He foresaw little practical application for this energy, a position he was to maintain well into the 19303. Nonetheless he noted, "If it were ever

14 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

found possible to control at will the rate of disintegration of the radioelements, an enormous amount of energy could be obtained from a small quantity of matter."4 Work on the nature of radioactivity led Soddy to another important insight, the possible existence of variants of atoms that, although chemically identical, possessed exquisitely fine differences at the atomic level. The concept struck him as so unusual that he attached to it the name "isotope" (for two entities standing in the same place). The eternal verities of the nineteenth century were coming under increasingly severe challenge and the foundations of the material world were proving far stranger and more fascinating than anyone had anticipated. The cosmic watchmaker of Newton's universe was proving that, at a minimum, She had a lively sense of humour. Rutherford's work had already revealed that the energy levels associated with the expulsion from the nucleus of alpha and beta particles were high. In 1905 Albert Einstein, in Switzerland, published three papers that would establish his reputation as one of the preeminent physicists of the new century. One of his creations, his special theory of relativity would, in due course, confirm and refine the magnitude of that store of latent energy that lay at the heart of the atom. Given the equivalency of mass and energy, the force binding together the closely packed particles comprising the nucleus could be derived from measurement of the masses of individual atoms (invariably somewhat less than the sum of the masses of their constituents). The energy required to bind the nucleus was shown to be very great, many orders of magnitude greater than the energy necessary to maintain an electron in the outer reaches of the atom. Within a few decades physicists' conception of the atom had undergone revolutionary changes. "Thus by the time the Great War broke out in 1914," as one writer summarized the process, "the billiard-ball picture of an indestructible atom had gone, to be replaced by an inconceivably small solar system in which the sun was a heavy positivelycharged nucleus, the planets light negative electrons, and practically the whole volume empty space. However, there was little to show what the nucleus itself was made of. The existence of radio-active elements and their radiations demonstrated that some nuclei at least were selfdestroying and must have some kind of structure."5 In the interwar period, however, diis conception would undergo further changes as radical as any that had preceded them. INTERWAR DEVELOPMENTS

One major step forward was confirmation of Soddy's insight that atoms might exist in chemically identical but atomically distinct varia-

15 Prelude to a Sabre Dance

tions. The invention of the mass spectrograph (which appears to have occurred independently in Britain and in the United States) permitted extremely precise measurements of atomic masses. By the outbreak of World War II virtually all elements had been shown to exist in two or more isotopic forms. Particularly noteworthy were the discoveries by American investigators of the uranium isotope 11-235, ^ess tnan i percent as common as the predominant form, 11-238, and of an even rarer isotope of hydrogen with twice the mass, which they designated deuterium. (It, like hydrogen, combined readily with oxygen to form "heavy water," a substance that would play an important part in the unfolding nuclear story). In 1919-20 Rutherford, in Britain, used alpha particles to convert a small quantity of nitrogen to oxygen. This feat encouraged scientists in several countries to consider how the velocity of electrically charged particles might be accelerated to bombard the nuclei of atoms and thereby gain a better understanding of their structure. Various instruments and methods were tried; one of the most fruitful would prove to be an accelerator that E.O. Lawrence designed and built in California. By the early 19305 Lawrence's "cyclotron" had developed into an extremely powerful research instrument. Developments in the area of theoretical physics were equally impressive. Building on the prewar work of Max Planck and Einstein, Schrodinger and Heisenberg in Germany, as well as Bohr in Denmark, sought to resolve and integrate the growing number of experimental observations and theoretical difficulties (e.g., the apparent wave/particle duality of radiation) that seemed to carry radically different theoretical implications. By the end of the 19205 a theory, quantum mechanics, had been elaborated that would offer profound new insights into the nature and behaviour of matter at the atomic level. Despite the growing political unrest and economic impoverishment of the 19305, the pace of investigation and discovery in physics quickened. In 1932 James Chadwick, in Britain, discovered the neutron, a component of the nucleus that carried no electrical charge. The discovery had important theoretical consequences. Among them was the suggestion that the nucleus of the atom was a structure composed entirely of positively charged protons and neutrons, uncharged particles of equal mass. While the number of protons in the nucleus (the atomic number) was invariable for any particular element, the number of neutrons could, and did, vary. Differences in the mass numbers of isotopes could be understood in terms of differences in the numbers of neutrons (mass comprising both protons and neutrons). Because the number of negatively charged electrons in the outer structure of the atom depended entirely on the number of positively charged protons within the nucleus and because chemical properties

i6 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

arose from the number and arrangement of the electrons, isotopes of differing mass would behave in a chemically indistinguishable manner. Moreover, the emission of beta radiation (a stream of electrons), which had seemed to demand the presence of electrons within the nucleus, could be understood as the product of the decay of a neutron into a proton and an electron. Research into the structure of the atom continued apace. Early in 1934 Irene Joliot-Curie (the daughter of Marie and Pierre) and her husband Frederic Joliot-Curie, in France, reported that they had succeeded in converting normally stable atoms into radioactive ones by bombarding them with alpha particles. This first deliberate production of radioactive isotopes generated considerable interest. Enrico Fermi, in Italy, speculating that Chadwick's uncharged neutron might make a very effective means of penetrating the nucleus, systematicall subjected different elements to neutron bombardment and found that the majority of them became radioactive. Fermi's experiments were to play a crucial role in further developments in both theoretical and experimental physics. In carrying out his neutron bombardment of elements, Fermi observed that the probability of the neutrons being captured by their target increased if their velocity could be slowed. This could be achieved, he reasoned, by encouraging their collision with the atoms of light elements. These observations would prove essential parts of the theoretical framework for the self-sustaining chain reaction that in due course became a major milestone in the nuclear story. The search for some means of moderating or "slowing" the neutrons released would be taken up by many others in Europe and North America.6 Fermi's observations were important for another reason. His explanation of the process of the capture and subsequent radioactivity of the target nucleus proved to be unsatisfactory. Seeking to provide a better understanding of Fermi's results, Niels Bohr published a paper in 1936 that has been described as "the decisive influence on the analysis of nuclear reactions for the next twenty years."7 In what is often referred to as the liquid drop model, Bohr suggested that "the nucleus must be thought of as a collection of nucleons into which an impinging particle entered and among which it shared its energy; emission of a particle would then take place only when, as a result of random motions, the energy became concentrated on a single nucleon and gave it enough energy to escape."8 Fermi's experiments of 1934, specifically those relating to uranium, were also a milestone on the road to nuclear fission. Uranium is the heaviest naturally occurring element, with an atomic number of 92 and a mass number of 238 in its most common isotopic form. Fermi's

17 Prelude to a Sabre Dance

observations of the activity produced by neutron bombardment of uranium led him down an unusual path to the intriguing conclusion that it had resulted in the creation of elements unknown in nature. He reasoned that in absorbing a neutron, the nucleus of a uranium 238 atom had increased its mass to 17-239. Subsequent radioactive emission of an electron (i.e., a beta ray) implied that the nucleus had gained one unit of positive charge and that its atomic number (i.e., protons only) was now 93, while its mass remained at 239. In short, "the uranium had been transmuted to an element above uranium in the periodic table a transuranic element such as was not known on Earth."9 Through further experimentation Fermi was able to demonstrate the presence of an infinitesimal quantity of uranium 239 and to suggest, as well, the existence of other "transuranic" (i.e., beyond uranium) elements. The Promethean results reported by Fermi stimulated extensive experimentation in laboratories across Europe and beyond. Two of the most active and distinguished research teams to devote themselves to neutron bombardment of uranium were Irene Joliot-Curie and P. Savitch in France and Otto Hahn and F. Strassmann in Germany. In 1938 the Curie-Savitch team duly reported the creation of a transuranic element. In seeking to extend the Curie-Savitch work, Hahn and Strassmann, however, were led to a bizarre conclusion: among the products of their bombardment of uranium was a substance that they first took to be radium. The most careful scrutiny of it, however, left no doubt that it was a radioactive isotope of barium, a much lighter element (atomic number 56), halfway up the periodic table. The results were not simply inexplicable, they were entirely perverse. As the two reported early in 1939, "Our ... isotopes have the properties of barium. As chemists, we are bound to affirm that the new bodies are not radium but barium. For there is no question of elements other than radium or barium being present ... As nuclear chemists we cannot decide to take this step in contradiction to all previous experience in nuclear physics."10 Hahn shared die baffling results privately with a former associate, Lise Meitner, an Austrian Jew who had fled to Sweden from Germany some months earlier. Meitner, with her nephew Otto Frisch, provided the key insights that resolved the apparently inexplicable findings of Hahn and Strassmann. The presence of barium could be understood if the neutron bombardment of uranium had split the nucleus in two. Each resulting fragment would have approximately half the mass and half the charge of uranium and would therefore comprise an atom of an element, such as barium, lying toward the middle of the periodic table. The bursting of the uranium nucleus would be accompanied by the release of very great amounts of energy.

i8 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy No nuclear disintegration observed up to that time had involved a change greater than that consequent upon the emission of an alpha particle, with a loss of four units of mass and two of charge. The new phenomenon was therefore entirely different, and to distinguish it Frisch suggested the name fission, from its similarity (on the liquid drop model) to the division of a biological cell. Another point of difference .... lay in the quantity of energy released, which Frisch and Meitner calculated would amount to 200,000,000 electron volts, thirty or more times the energy released in the emission of an alpha particle. This very large amount of energy would be divided between the two ... fission fragments ... and the latter would fly away with great speed, carrying most of the energy with them.11

During the course of 1939 the hypothesis was tested, refined, and published. A presentation by Niels Bohr to the American Physical Society in Washington on the Meitner-Frisch ideas generated an intensive round of further experimentation in Europe and North America. Bohr had already theorized that fission might more easily be achieved using uranium 235 rather than its far more plentiful relative, uranium 238. In France a phenomenon thought to be associated with fission, the secondary release of neutrons, was confirmed byJoliot-Curie, Halban, and Kowarski.12 Of equal importance, they established experimentally that each fission yielded more than one secondary neutron, a finding that substantially increased the prospect of a chain reaction proving feasible. Later in the year Bohr and J.A. Wheeler, an American former student, prepared a paper that drew together and extended many of the advances registered in 1939 in the scientific understanding of nuclear fission. Two days after its publication, the world was once again engulfed by war. THE PROPHECY

The tale of the unlocking of the secrets of the atom is full of ironies. For decades, scientists in half a dozen countries had openly and freely contributed their best efforts to one of the human intellect's most magnificent products, a theory that revealed in growing detail the subtlety, strength, and elegance of the foundations of the material world. As the lights began to wink out across Europe, this graceful and majestic intellectual structure would come to be seen as the source of a threat of unprecedented magnitude to the survival of the Western democracies. The information, first in trickles and then in streams, was there for any competent physicist to see; there was no theoretical barrier to nuclear fission becoming an important new source of power or of explosive devices of unprecedented ferocity.

ig Prelude to a Sabre Dance

While initially reluctant to accept this conclusion, governments, first in Britain and subsequently in the United States, were brought to the stark realization that developments and devices once relegated to the realm of science fiction had to be taken seriously. In Britain, Professor R. Peierls of the University of Birmingham and Otto Frisch (who had fled from Sweden) detailed in a three-page memorandum early in 1940 why the possibility of a "super-bomb" could not be easily dismissed and how such a weapon might be manufactured. A high-level scientific advisory group, the M.A.U.D. Committee, was mandated to examine the matter in detail.13 The committee's findings illustrate the inherently ambivalent, destroyer/creator nature of the new discoveries. The production of electric power from a "uranium boiler" was seen as a real possibility, although one that would pose major theoretical and engineering challenges. The work of Halban and Kowarski (refugee French scientists who in 1940 had smuggled out of France just ahead of the victorious German armies the world's single largest quantity of heavy water) was identified as worth pursuing, although it was not expected to yield practical applications that might be harnessed to the war effort. Respecting the military applications of the atom the committee soon concluded that, despite its members' initial scepticism, "it will be possible to make an effective uranium bomb which, containing some 25 Ib of active material, would be equivalent as regards destructive effect to 1,800 tons of TNT and would also release large quantities of radioactive substances, which would make places near to where the bomb exploded dangerous to human life for a long period."14 To illustrate what the detonation of 1,800 tons of TNT equivalent would mean, the committee cited the Halifax Harbour explosion of 1917, the largest man-made preatomic explosion ever recorded: "The zone of the explosion extended for about 3/4 mile in every direction and in this zone the destruction was almost complete. Severe structural damage extended generally for a radius of i Vs to 11A miles, and in one direction up to 1% miles ... Missiles were projected to 3-4 miles, window glass broken up to 10 miles generally, and in one instance up to 61 miles."15 The report offered the following conclusions: "The committee considers that the scheme for a uranium bomb is practicable and likely to lead to decisive results in the war ... It recommends that this work be continued on the highest priority and on the increasing scale necessary to obtain the weapon in the shortest possible time ... That the present collaboration with America should be continued and extended especially in the region of experimental work."16 Alarm bells had also begun to sound in the United States, although in a somewhat more muffled fashion given its distance from the fighting

2O

Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

and its neutral status. In June 1940 an existing advisory committee on uranium was brought within the framework of Dr Vannevar Bush's National Defense Research Council. Although the Americans came somewhat later than the British to a decision to pursue a weapon, once they had decided to proceed, they did so with enormous vigour and all the resources that their great industrial strength permitted. Throughout the balance of the war, a constant spur to AngloAmerican efforts to develop a weapon was the fear that Nazi Germany would beat them to the punch. Hitler's anti-Semitic policies had cost him the services of some of Europe's leading physicists, services that would increasingly be put at the disposition of the Western Allies. Nonetheless, Germany had a long and proud scientific tradition, an assured source of uranium in Czechoslovakia, and all the extensive industrial resources of occupied Europe at its disposal. Moreover, the efforts that the German military had already made to secure Norwegian supplies of heavy water seemed to suggest the existence of a major program to construct a weapon. It would eventually be discovered after the war that the German effort was modest and poorly focused, but the fear that Germany would "win the race" was a real and constant preoccupation among the Allies.17

3 Canada's Wartime Nuclear Project Were you Whittington's friend? The Pied Piper's assistant? Have you been an alumnus of heaven and hell? "Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats," from the musical Cats

CANADIAN RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES

The epoch-making events described in chapter 2 had only limited impact on Canada and Canadians. True, Rutherford had done some of his crucial early work at McGill in Montreal at the turn of the century, and several Canadian universities maintained active and well-qualified physics programs. Nonetheless, nowhere in Canada was there to be found an assembly of talent and resources remotely comparable to those enjoyed by such great centres of learning as the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge in Britain or the Joliot-Curie facilities at the College de France in Paris. Canada, however, was not without assets in the field. In Ottawa the National Research Council, through its Division of Physics and Electrical Engineering, early on had organized a small-scale but pioneering program of relevant research. In March 1940 Dr G.C. Laurence, intrigued by the results being reported from European laboratories, began construction of a carbon-moderated, natural uranium "pile" to explore the possibilities of uranium fission. (In doing so Lawrence, a former student of Rutherford, became one of the first scientists in the world to pursue this line of inquiry.) At Trail, British Columbia, the facilities of the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company were particularly well suited for the production of heavy water. Of greatest importance was Canada's possession, through the radium mining activities of Eldorado Gold Mines, of significant supplies of uranium, a material about to become the preeminent strategic commodity. Despite

22

Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

the foregoing, however, it is beyond argument that Canada's wartime endeavours in the area arose largely from the complexities of the Anglo-American nuclear relationship, rather than any strategic initiative by Canadian scientists or policymakers. The U.S.-UK relationship was a curious mixture of cooperation and rivalry, complicated by a series of miscues and missed opportunities.l The recommendations of the British government's M.A.U.D committee, including its injunction that cooperation with the United States be continued and extended, went forward to Prime Minister Churchill during the summer of 1941. (The 1940 Tizard mission to North America, in which Britain had shared with the United States detailed information on some of its most secret advanced research projects in such areas as radar, appeared in British eyes to have already established the foundations for such a relationship.) On 30 August the recommendations were referred for comment to the British chiefs of staff. They were duly supported, with one significant exception; the British chiefs were firmly of the view that work on the weapons project should be pursued in Britain. Later that fall Churchill was approached by Roosevelt on the matter, but, consistent with the advice he had received from his military advisors, he put off the American president with a vague and tardy reply. By the winter of 1941-42 the complexity of pursuing a massive new weapons project in a country fighting for its life and vulnerable to continuing German bombing raids was becoming ever clearer to the British authorities. A team of British scientists visited North America early in 1942 and found that the United States, a belligerent in the war since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, had seized the initiative and was pursuing the development of a weapon with great vigour and virtually unlimited resources. The British team also took the opportunity to visit Ottawa, where they maintained a scientific liaison officer and made contact with Dr CJ. Mackenzie, the acting president of the NRG. The British, impressed by the dimensions of the American effort, lost little time in proposing that their nuclear program be melded with that of the United States. An exchange of correspondence in March 1942 appeared to set the stage for a joint Anglo-American program. Already, however, the American effort far surpassed anything the British could hope to mount. It was now the Americans' turn to spurn a British advance. The American team had great advantages over the Cambridge team in the size of its research team, in laboratory resources, and in essential raw materials. The Cambridge team consisted of only six senior physicists and only one of them was British by birth ... Already ... there were over four times as many

23 Canada's Wartime Nuclear Project scientists at work on the project in America. The United States also had far more powerful particle accelerators. As for material, uranium oxide was available equally to the British and American teams. But pure uranium metal, heavy water and graphite would be available in adequate quantity sooner in America dian in Britain. The one advantage the British seemed still to hold was in "knowledge of the art" for the Halban-Kowarski team had been studying the problems of a slow neutron system a good deal longer than the Americans. But this advantage too would diminish rapidly with time.2 A CANADIAN COMPROMISE

When the British proposed relocating their Cambridge team to the United States and integrating it into the American program, the Americans demurred; the preponderance on the team of refugee European scientists appeared to them to pose an unacceptably high security threat. Locating the team in Canada began to attract minds on both sides of the Atlantic as a compromise by which some form of cooperative - if unintegrated - development program could be pursued. In June 1942 Malcolm MacDonald, the British high commissioner in Ottawa, accompanied by senior British scientific officers, called on Prime Minister Mackenzie King. The chief British interest was in gaining access to uranium, thought at the time to be an extremely rare material. The only known supplies outside continental Europe were to be found in the then Belgian Congo and in the pitchblende deposits along the shores of Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories, which Eldorado Gold Mines had begun mining for radium a decade earlier. King recorded in his diary at the time: "The whole business was very secret, but it was represented that it was quite possible that it might, within a very short time, lead to a development that whichever country possessed this mineral in time would unquestionably win the war with its power of destruction ... being so great."3 The visitors developed their interest in detail in subsequent conversations with C.D. Howe, then minister of munitions and supply, and Dr Mackenzie of the NRC. One outcome of these conversations was the Canadian government's decision to acquire control of Eldorado - a decision that Howe began to implement the following month - and to involve itself directly in the operations of the company.4 A year later Ottawa would introduce regulations reserving for the Crown "all radioactive substances" in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. On 5 August 1942 Sir John Anderson, Churchill's senior advisor on nuclear matters, wrote to Dr Vannevar Bush, the senior American scientist, with Dr J.B. Conant, directing the American project. Anderson's proposals in the aggregate would have provided for close coordination

24 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

of British and American efforts in exchange for the British gaining a voice in the overall direction of the program. Anderson also advised Bush that London was thinking of relocating the Halban heavy water team to Canada. The Americans displayed little sense of urgency in responding to the approach; almost a month elapsed before a rather ambiguous and lukewarm reply was issued. In his eventual reply, Bush did, however, express himself as strongly in favour of increased scientific exchanges (ignoring the British interest in joint production facilities) , and he welcomed the prospect of the Halban team relocating to North America. On 17 August, before the American response was received, the British, through their deputy high commissioner in Ottawa, formally approached Dr Mackenzie to determine whether Canada would be prepared to host a joint Anglo-Canadian research program. Mackenzie, long convinced of the benefit to Canada of extended scientific collaboration, took his caller along to put the proposal to Mackenzie's superior, C.D. Howe. "'I remember,' he told a reporter in 1961, 'he [C.D.] sat there and listened to the whole thing, then he turned to me and said: 'What do you think?' I told him I thought it was a sound idea, then he nodded a couple of times and said: 'Okay, let's go.' "5 A costsharing formula was developed under which Britain remained responsible for the salaries of the personnel it sent out and Canada absorbed all other expenses. In September Dr Halban visited Canada for detailed discussions, and Howe finalized arrangements at the governmental level while in London in October. The Halban heavy water team was not the totality of Britain's wartime effort, nor - as noted elsewhere - had it been seen as particularly relevant to the development of a weapon. Initially its research program had been supported as a long-term investment in the possibility of atomic energy becoming a feasible, economic source of large-scale power production. Nonetheless, Halban, Kowarski, and those who had been drawn into their work did constitute the most important single collection of scientific knowledge, capability, and talent that the United Kingdom could deploy in the area of atomic energy. Moreover, their work had acquired a new relevance to weapons development since the 1940 discovery (and subsequent manufacture) by Glen Seaborg and others in the United States of plutonium (element 94), a substance that Fermi, in his research results described earlier, had suspected, but could not prove, to be present. At the outset of the war u235 had been thought to be the best, perhaps the only, fissile material. Securing sufficient quantities of 11-235 entailed difficult, untested technology exploiting the vanishingly small differences between 11-238 and u-235 to separate out the seven particles in every thousand that could

25 Canada's Wartime Nuclear Project

be used for a device. In its quest for a bomb the United States would employ no less than four quite different technologies in pursuit of adequate supplies of 11-235. Plutonium, in at least one of its many isotopic variants, was quickly recognized as possessing an even greater destructive potential. Seaborg's discovery opened up an entirely distinct route to a weapon: the transformation, in an atomic pile, of a given quantity of 11-238 into plutonium and its subsequent chemical extraction and separation from the material that had been irradiated. Theoretically, Halban's heavy water, slow neutron pile could prove a highly efficient means of producing at least the unseparated plutonium - if it could ever be made to work. HALCYON HOURS AND TROUBLED DAYS

By December 1942 the prospects of the Anglo-Canadian project appeared to be excellent. First-rate accommodation had been found for the team in the just-completed medical wing of the Universite de Montreal; the necessary scientific equipment and materials for the new laboratory were being secured; most of the Cambridge members had arrived from Britain, and a number of excellent Canadian scientists and technicians had been invited to join them; and the administrative and organizational arrangements needed to link the Montreal Laboratory to the NRC had been put in place. Within weeks, however, the viability of the entire enterprise would be challenged. On 2 January 1943 Dr Conant of the United States wrote to Dr Mackenzie formally setting out the conditions under which the United States would cooperate with the Montreal Laboratory. Not only were they far more stringent than either the Canadians or the British had been led to expect, they appeared to be at variance with earlier political undertakings that the British thought Roosevelt had given to Churchill respecting the full exchange of basic scientific information. Henceforward, Dr Conant stipulated, the Americans would share information with their allies only if the recipient were in a position "to take advantage of it in this war." Moreover, contrary to any earlier informal understandings, the United States had decided to develop its own heavy water pile (the special area of competence of the Anglo-Canadian team). Earlier oral assurances that American heavy water (manufactured at Trail, British Columbia, but financed with American money) would be made available to the Montreal facility would only be honoured if the Anglo-Canadian team shared their expertise with the American company contracted to build the heavy water pile at Chicago and shaped their research efforts in light of American needs.

26 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

The policy changes articulated by Dr Conant had several different roots. During the summer of 1942 the American program had been reorganized and reconstituted as the Manhattan District project. The U.S. Army, personified by the redoubtable General Leslie Groves, had taken charge and was determined to secure an effective weapon at the earliest practicable date. While the scientists who had previously directed American efforts remained crucial to success, they no longer had the sole, or event the dominant, voice in the decision making. Security, already a major preoccupation, became even more intense with General Groves' arrival. In addition, on 2 December 1942 Enrico Fermi (who had fled Europe with his family just before war broke out) succeeded in creating a self-sustaining chain reaction at the Stagg Field facilities in Chicago, a huge step forward.6 Not only was a bomb possible, the Americans could be reasonably certain that they had all the resources necessary to develop it on their own. That same month the United States Army also managed to contract for Eldorado's entire uranium oxide production for the immediate future, thereby assuring the American program of increased supplies of an essential raw material. There were other, longer-term, factors in play as well. One was simply the disparity in effort. "By the end of 1942," noted one writer, "the United States was already doing ten times as much as the United Kingdom; and Canada was hardly as yet in the picture at all. The United Kingdom had confessed that the production of an atomic weapon was beyond its heavily engaged resources."7 Some British officials, in their desire to put the case for full partnership in as favourable a light as possible, may have oversold to the United States the size and scope of their endeavours. In contrast, the massive American program was making excellent progress across a broad range of relevant lines of inquiry and experimentation. The assistance of outsiders was welcome in certain areas and for specific purposes, but not at any price and only on conditions that the United States alone would set. In addition, several of the key British interlocutors in the AngloAmerican discussions had close ties to Imperial Chemical Industries. This was hardly surprising, since ici was the chief locus of the industrial and technical strength on which a full-scale British program would have to rely. In American eyes, however, ici was also a potential postwar rival in the civilian uses of nuclear energy, a field that was expected to grow rapidly when peace returned. American officials were determined not to see the commercial benefits of scientific advances that had cost the U.S. taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars to achieve siphoned off by others who had contributed little or nothing to the effort. Third, the multitude of nationalities represented on the Cambridge team was a continuing source of concern to the United States, includ-

27

Canada's Wartime Nuclear Project

ing as it did scientists from Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Italy, and Poland. At first blush the American preoccupation seems overdrawn, in light of the prominence within the American program of many distinguished foreign-born scientists. General Groves, however, appears to have been as demanding respecting the security of the American program as he was with non-Americans. As the Cambridge team that relocated to Montreal included at least two individuals who would eventually be found guilty of espionage, it is difficult to maintain that his concerns were misplaced. The world had changed mightily since 1941, when the British, with some justification, might claim that their program was the most advanced. If the Allies were to build a bomb in time to influence the outcome of the war, it would be built in the United States, largely from American resources, under unambiguously American direction and control. The Conant letter strained relations, not only between the American and Anglo-Canadian teams but between the Canadians and the British as well. The latter saw in the new American policy a complete repudiation of the close collaboration that Washington and London had espoused in principle - but never quite achieved in practice - since 1940. Their preferred response was to escalate the issue to the level of Churchill and Roosevelt, in the belief that they could bypass obstructionism at lower levels and achieve a broader and more generous basis for cooperation.8 The Canadians (effectively CJ. Mackenzie and C.D. Howe) had little sympathy for this approach. While disappointed by the American attitude, they did not think it was entirely unjustified, given the resources the Americans had already committed. Moreover, the Canadians were reasonably confident that the major immediate issue before them - securing adequate access to u.s. supplies and scientific personnel for the Montreal team - could be resolved through patience, common sense, and full use of their extensive networks of American contacts. Mackenzie, in particular, appears to have thought that the British too frequently underestimated the magnitude of the American effort and overestimated their own. Matters came to a head several months later in London when Sir John Anderson, in reviewing the project with Mackenzie, suggested that Britain would have to consider what it could do on its own in the absence of an acceptable basis for cooperation with the United States. Mackenzie, to Anderson's evident irritation, dismissed this as a nonstarter: "If they [the British] broke off with the United States, we would have to close down, as we could get no priorities or any material and our government would certainly not support a team in Canada to compete with the United States."9

28 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

Impasse at the political level had a major negative effect on the morale and effectiveness of the Montreal Laboratory. With considerable difficulty a talented team had been assembled to prosecute a project that, its members had been told, was crucial to the war effort. Some basic research was carried out, and projects already underway pursued. As month after month slipped by, however, it became increasingly evident that the basic rationale for the facility had either disappeared or was quickly doing so. Ironically, the semi-idleness enforced on the laboratory during much of 1943 would prove a blessing in disguise, as it gave its scientists an unexpected opportunity to pursue a number of interesting theoretical and speculative lines of inquiry. The long and successful line of Canadian heavy water-natural uranium reactors, from the first small research units to the huge CANDU power reactors, owes much to the pioneering work carried out as the team waited for its "war work" to begin. THE QUEBEC CONFERENCE

Despite Anderson's threat, the British did not abandon their efforts to establish, or reestablish, a basis for cooperation with the Americans. At the Quebec Conference in August 1943 an agreement was formalize that would shape the nature of trans-Atlantic nuclear cooperation well into the postwar period. The ultrasecret text, the contents of which were not revealed for many years, was cast in the form of a bilateral agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom. Its chief provisions were as follows: First, that we will never use this agency against each other. Secondly, that we will not use it against third parties without each other's consent. Thirdly, that we will not either of us communicate any information about Tube Alloys [British code for the A weapon project] to third parties except by mutual consent. Fourthly, that in view of the heavy burden of production falling upon the United States ... the British Government recognise that any post-war advantages of an industrial or commercial character shall be dealt with as between the United States and Great Britain on terms to be specified by the President ... to die Prime Minister ... And Fifthly, that the following arrangements shall be made to ensure full and effective collaboration between the two countries ... (a) There shall be set up in Washington a Combined Policy Committee.10

29 Canada's Wartime Nuclear Project

The functions of the six-member Combined Policy Committee (CPC) were specified, "subject to the control of the respective Governments," as " ( i ) To agree from time to time upon the programme of work to be carried out in the two countries. (2) To keep all sections of the project under constant review. (3) To allocate materials, apparatus and plant, in limited supply, in accordance with the requirements of the programme agreed by the Committee. (4) To settle any questions which may arise on the interpretation or application of this Agreement."11 On the key question that had bedeviled Anglo-American nuclear relations, the degree of exchange to be permitted between programs, a compromise was struck between the British desire for complete interchange and the American reluctance to grant it. "Full and effective" interchange of information and ideas was agreed between those in each country engaged in the same field; ad hoc arrangements were permissible respecting the "design, construction and operation of large-scale plants" where these could be shown to be necessary or desirable to bring the project "to fruition at the earliest moment." Canada's role in the agreement was distinctly subordinate. It was not formally a party to the accord; the document was signed by Churchill and Roosevelt only. The formal undertakings set out in the text were binding only upon the United States and the United Kingdom. Canada, however, clearly was associated with the arrangement. Prior to signature Churchill had consulted Mackenzie King about the possibility of Canadian participation in the one mechanism established by the agreement, the CPC, and King had agreed that C.D. Howe should be appointed. As signed, the agreement provided for a CPC comprising three American members, two British, and one Canadian. While Canada would not participate as an equal, it was at least at the table. The Quebec Agreement substantially increased the range and the pace of Allied cooperation on nuclear matters. By the end of the war some fifty British scientists would participate directly in the American program, notably in two different separation technologies, as well as in weapons design. The Montreal Laboratory however remained something of an anomaly. While morale improved, the Americans' decision to build their own heavy water pile had largely preempted the role originally envisaged for the Anglo-Canadian team. The latter represented, however, an important pool of talent, as well as a significant investment of scarce resources by both Canada and the United Kingdom. Moreover the prospects for synergy between the AngloCanadian and American projects held some appeal for all parties concerned.

30 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

Informal discussions continued for some months among Canadian, American, and British scientists. A technical subcommittee of the CPC was struck comprising CJ. Mackenzie, General Groves, and Dr (later Sir) James Chadwick. Despite the opposition of several leading American scientists, the subcommittee recommended in February that the work of the Anglo-Canadian team warranted support and that a "heavy water pilot pile" be constructed in Canada.12 The CPC duly approved these recommendations on 13 April 1944. Before departing Ottawa for the CPC meeting in Washington, Howe, anticipating that a positive CPC decision would require Canada to increase very substantially its support for the atomic project, had consulted his colleagues on the Cabinet War Committee. In preparation for this session he had Mackenzie prepare three "personal and most secret" memoranda on the "radiological project." Howe would not allow the documents to be circulated to his fellow ministers but drew from them in making his oral presentation to obtain support for the project. The documents provided a very brief summary of recent developments in the nuclear field - and a fascinating insight into the thinking that guided the Canadian program in its infancy. "Since 1941 active research in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada has been carried out," Dr Mackenzie wrote, "and it is now certain a bomb can and will be made that will be, if not a million times, at least hundreds of times more powerful than anything yet known. It is also certain that power units will be made in the future for aeroplanes, ships and submarines that will drive planes thousands of miles and carry ships across the ocean on a few pounds of fuel."13 After outlining the magnitude of the two-billion-dollar American program (perhaps to put into perspective the modesty of the sums he was seeking), Mackenzie argued: "Time and military urgency demand that every possible avenue be explored. The United States has six separate projects under way."14 Canada had strong credentials to participate in the seventh, heavy water project because of "[o]ur ownership of uranium ores, our early interest in the production of heavy water at Trail and the presence of a highly expert group of workers in Canada."15 Mackenzie therefore supported it fully. "In my opinion Canada has a unique opportunity to become intimately associated in a project which is not only of the greatest immediate military importance but which may revolutionize the future world in the same degree as did the invention of the steam engine and the discovery of electricity. It is an opportunity Canada as a nation cannot afford to turn down."16 Howe, as usual, got his way. The relevant minute of the War Committee records that " i The Minister of Munitions and Supply submitted a

31 Canada's Wartime Nuclear Project

proposal recommended by the Acting President of the National Research Council for the construction and operation, in Canada, of a pilot plant for the further development of a special process of the highest secrecy. The product ... promised to be of the greatest importance to the war effort and its postwar significance was likely to prove revolutionary ... 2 The War Committee, after discussion, approved the Minister's recommendation and authorized expenditure to Canadian account of up to $4 millions capital cost and $750,000 operating expenses."17 The fundamentally ambivalent nature of the nuclear project was already clearly established. THE PROJECT AND THE WAR

Work proceeded quickly on the project. A site at Chalk River on the upper Ottawa River was selected in July 1944, and work began the following month. Despite wartime scarcities and winter conditions, construction of die Chalk River facility - and the model town to house its personnel - moved ahead rapidly. One important decision taken in this period was, as already noted, to build a small-scale version (ZEEP) before proceeding with the main Canadian heavy water pile (NRX). By the summer of 1945 the centre of gravity in the Anglo-Canadian project had shifted from Montreal to Chalk River. As noted earlier, ZEEP "went critical" on 5 September 1945, three days after Japan had formally surrendered. As to the quality of tripartite nuclear cooperation in the closing phase of the war, once the Americans had committed to support the Anglo-Canadian project, they appear to have done so fully and with little immediate return. In the words of one historian intimately familiar with Canada's military role in World War II, Without this American support the Chalk River project in Canada would have been impossible. And it was given, to quote a British official historian, in spite of the facts that the project "gave little real advantage to the Americans with their enormous plants in their own country" and that it was "essentially a postwar project and barely within the terms of collaboration agreed at Quebec." The debt to the Americans, and above all to Groves, should be remembered. It is the more important in that the Chalk River plant was to a large extent the foundation of both the British and the Canadian postwar achievements in atomic energy.18

In the end, the Canadian role in the American wartime weapons program appears to have been significant but in no sense decisive. A

3 2 Canada' s Early Nuclear Policy

number of individual Canadian scientists participated in the American research effort; scientific exchanges between the Montreal facility and various American counterparts were intensive following the CPC decision of April 1944; the heavy water production facility at Trail allowed the construction of heavy water reactors in both Canada and the United States; and, most importantly, Canadian uranium figured significantly in American calculations respecting this essential commodity. It is unlikely, however, that any uranium of Canadian origin went into the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, since Canadian production levels were in fact quite modest well into the late 19405. (By far the most important components of American uranium supply were the quantities that had been stockpiled in the United States at the outset of the war and, later, the output from mines in what was then the Belgian Congo.) The plutonium used in one device almost certainly was produced in the American graphitemoderated piles that were constructed before significant supplies of heavy water became available and well before any reactor began operation in Canada. As to the 11-235 weapon, the original route identified at the outset of the war, Canadians appear to have played no part in the American development of the enrichment technologies that produced the weapons grade material. The British role may have been more significant. The official historian of the British nuclear program noted that although "it is impossible to assess the contribution of the British teams to the American wartime project as a whole," one unspecified American scientist after the war said that "the British share in the work of producing the first atomic bomb had certainly shortened by at least a year the time which would otherwise have been required."19 Beyond Britain's prewar research achievements in nuclear research, the impact of the M.A.U.D reports in galvanizing the u.s. administration into action, and the UK contribution to the Anglo-Canadian team, British scientists participated in several facets of the Manhattan project, notably in several of the experimental uranium enrichment technologies, as well as in weapons design. The differences in the British and Canadian roles are perhaps best illustrated in the manner in which they were associated with the American decision to use the weapon against Japan. By mid-1945 the prospect had been current for some time. After a conversation with the British high commissioner in Ottawa in February 1945, Prime Minister Mackenzie King recorded in his diary that "He agreed with me that there was a possibility of the Americans finishing off the Japanese by themselves, and told me privately that there was some possibility of a certain very secret weapon being used by the Americans against the

33 Canada's Wartime Nuclear Project

Japanese. We discussed this particular weapon and what the mere possession of it is likely to mean in perpetuating dread among the nations through years to come once its existence and powers are known. It could mean the destruction of civilization."20 By early summer the United States government, consistent with die terms of the Quebec Agreement, had asked the United Kingdom to formalize its support for the use of the weapon. The minutes of a CPC meeting dated 4 July 1945 contain the following entry: "Field Marshall Wilson stated that the British Government concurred in the use of the T.A. [Tube Alloys] weapon against Japan. He added that the Prime Minister might wish to discuss diis matter with the President at die forthcoming meeting in Berlin."21 Canada's concurrence was neither sought nor extended, despite the presence of a minister at the table. C.D. Howe contented himself with suggesting, during subsequent discussion of the public affairs aspect of the decision, that C.J. Mackenzie be informed and consulted. Immediately following the bombing of Hiroshima, coordinated statements were released in Washington, London, and Ottawa. In the American capital President Truman stressed the unprecedented power of the weapon and warned that the United States was now prepared "to obliterate ... every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city."22 The bomb was characterized as the outcome of a desperate, secret, but fortunately successful, scientific race against the Germans; the product of close and continuous Anglo-American collaboration (the Canadian role was not mentioned); and the harbinger of a new era of unprecedented risks and opportunities. Truman also spelled out that the manufacture of the bomb would remain a closely held secret and that the sustained attention of both Congress and the Administration would be needed to determine "how atomic power can become a powerful and forceful influence towards the maintenance of world peace."23 In the United Kingdom the newly elected Labour prime minister, Clement Attlee (who had come to power knowing very littie about the project), released a statement by his predecessor, Winston Churchill. The latter, while generous in his recognition of the American effort (and not entirely oblivious to the Canadian), followed the American lead in presenting the fearsome new weapon as the product of sustained Anglo-American endeavour. A very high gloss was placed on the British contribution, suggesting a footing of equality that never existed. Thus, the Allies had feared that the Germans might be the first to acquire a nuclear weapon, but " [b]y God's mercy British and American science outpaced all German efforts."24 Similar language occurred throughout the text.

34 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

The Canadian statement, in comparison, was subdued. Certainly, as the magnitude of the event emerged, Canadian newspapers proudly played up Canada's part in the development of the weapon. On 8 August one Ottawa paper ran several articles purporting to tell the "story of the success of the scientists of Great Britain, the United States and Canada, in the race against Germany in the development of the powerful atomic bomb" and even included a picture of an entirely undistinguished stretch of Canadian bush over the caption "Atom Bomb Explosives Plant Site on the Ottawa River. "25 The official Canadian position, however, contained little triumphalism. It appeared in Howe's name, rather than the prime minister's (although King used Howe's statement to brief participants in a federal-provincial conference he was chairing) and placed heavy stress on the nonmilitary dimensions of nuclear research: "The real significance does not lie in the fact that this new bomb has accomplished an almost incredible feat of destruction, important as that fact may be; its significance is that this bomb is a sign which all can appreciate that the basic problems of the release of energy by atomic fission have been solved, and that the unbelievably large amounts of energy which scientists have long believed to be associated with matter can now be made available for practical use."26 Respecting the Chalk River complex, "Canada has also undertaken, as part of the co-operative effort, to build a pilot plant for the purpose of investigating one of the methods of making materials which is required for the atomic bomb, and 10,000 acres west of the Petawawa Military Camp were expropriated and the necessary industrial facilities, townsite and laboratories are nearing completion."27 Picking up on a theme that President Truman had cast in an American national context, Howe indicated (with no discernible justification) that Canada had studies underway as to how future production and use of the weapon might best be controlled: "The international aspect of this new development, with its possibilities both of good and evil, will be foremost in the minds of many and it is to be hoped that some means will be found to use it for the benefit of mankind, not for our destruction, but for the maintenance of peace."28 If wishes were horses then beggars might ride.

4 Hiroshima and Its Aftermath In the lamplight the withered leaves collect at my feet And the wind begins to moan. "Memory," from Cats

THE B O M B S FELT R O U N D THE WORLD

On 6 August 1945 the Hiroshima weapon killed or mortally wounded some 64,000 people, and injured 72,000. The toll at Nagasaki three days later was 39,000 dead or dying and 25,000 injured. In both cities zones of total destruction extended from the blast centres for a considerable distance, before tapering to areas of very heavy and moderate damage. By the appalling standards of the war, these casualties were not qualitatively different from those inflicted on cities elsewhere during the conflict. The 1945 bombing of Dresden, for example, carried out by conventional means, is thought to have killed 135,000 civilians, while one raid on Tokyo that same year, using incendiaries, may have killed 83,000 and injured 102,000.1 What appears to have shocked even the most hardened observers was not the scale of the destruction, but the ease with which it had been inflicted. The explosive yields achieved by the weapons were far greater than initially had been anticipated. The u-235 device used to destroy Hiroshima had exploded with a force equivalent to 12.5 kilotons (12,500 tons) of high explosive, while the plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki, although it killed fewer people, had achieved a yield of approximately 2 2 kilotons. Rather than something akin to the Halifax Harbour explosion anticipated by the M.A.U.D Committee, the results had been seven to twelve times greater. A plutonium core A-bomb with a yield in excess of 20,000 tons of high explosive had an explosive force several orders of magnitude greater than the heaviest conventional ordnance used

36 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

during World War II. A few aircraft armed with atomic weapons could now do what had previously required massive fleets of heavy bombers. As one press account of the day put it: "The bomb carried a wallop more violent than 2,000 8-29 Superfortresses normally could hand an enemy city using old type TNT bombs."2 The implications of the new weapon were not long in forcing themselves upon policymakers and public alike. Shortly before the bombs fell, Mackenzie King, after learning of Japan's refusal of the Allies' ultimatum to surrender, had noted in his diary that "Within a few days at the latest the power of the atomic bomb will be disclosed and with it Japan will be faced with either immediate complete surrender or complete devastation ... I feel that we are approaching a moment of terror to mankind, for it means that, under the stress of war, men have at last not only found but created the Frankenstein which conceivably could destroy the human race."3 News of the bombing of Hiroshima prompted the following entry: "We now see what might have come to the British people had German scientists won the race ... I am a little concerned about how Russia may feel, not having been told anything of this invention or of what the British and the u.s. were doing in the way of exploring and perfecting the process."4 A similar ambivalence may be found in the press accounts of the day. While a war-weary public welcomed anything that would speed the end of the war, the realization quickly spread that a new and highly dangerous element had been unleashed. The sun had come to earth and it would not be readily controlled. "Philosophic thinkers have long since warned their fellow men," as the editorial writer of the Globe and Mail mused on 7 August, "that civilization was in dire danger if humanity did not develop the moral sense to control the vast powers its scientific discoveries had unlocked. Nothing in the past, however, has been comparable to the dangers that are now released ... [I] t would seem inevitable that Japan could not long continue as an active belligerent ... [T]he possessors of the atomic bomb will have a supreme influence in maintaining peace on earth ... For better or for worse, mankind has now reached a new level of authority in its command of nature. The achievement is sublime; the responsibility awe-inspiring."5 The development of the A-bomb, and Canada's role in it, had been very closely held secrets within the Canadian government. Among the senior echelons - apart from the sketchy information provided to the Cabinet War Committee - very few beyond Mackenzie King, C.D. Howe, and C.J. Mackenzie had any real knowledge of the matter. Indeed, of these three it is likely that only Dr Mackenzie had the time, background, and interest to gain a full grasp of these events, which

37 Hiroshima and Its Aftermath

were "to draw a line through history." One consequence of this understandable security preoccupation was that no one in the Canadian government had had any opportunity to think through the political and military implications of the weapon for Canada or anyone else. It is instructive to reflect that the entire United Nations system - along with virtually all the rest of the postwar machinery for cooperation among states - was designed, debated, refined, and implemented in complete ignorance of the factor that would most sharply distinguish the postwar period from all that had gone before. A second consequence was widespread confusion, among policymakers and public alike, over the true dimensions of the Canadian contribution to the development of the weapon and the real role of Canada in any future decisions about its employment. Some clearly assumed that in atomic matters, as in most other aspects of the war effort, Canada must have been no more than a junior partner in a combined Anglo-American effort. Others evidently thought that Canada, by virtue of its contributions, had achieved a measure of parity with her larger, more powerful allies. On 13 August 1945, a week after the bombs had fallen, the Cabinet Defence Committee - successor to the Cabinet War Committee that had directed Canada's war effort since 1939 - held its first meeting. A.G.L. McNaughton, then approaching the end of his brief and illfated tenure as minister of national defence, offered his cabinet colleagues a highly optimistic assessment of what the new weapon meant for Canada: The Minister of National Defence suggested that the Committee should first consider the post-war requirements, and submitted a memorandum from the Chief of the General Staff setting out several Army proposals. These were based on assumptions that "full strategic account shall be taken of the defeat of dictatorships, that the atomic bomb is completely controlled by the United States, Great Britain and Canada and, in consequence, the World Security Council [sic] have an effective weapon capable of immediate use, and so ... has something real for the prevention of any major aggression in the future, that the whole march of events has brought the Allies closer into harmony and there is a real hope that that harmony will continue long into the future."6 TOWARD A POLICY

The first step toward addressing some of the implications of the new weapon was taken by Hume Wrong, then associate under-secretary of state for external affairs, on 18 August. "The successful development

38 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

of the bomb is of such far-reaching importance," argued Wrong to the prime minister in a secret memo, "that it may profoundly affect international affairs even to the point of altering the whole balance of international forces overnight. It seems desirable, therefore, that we should attempt as a matter of some urgency to arrive at a careful appreciation of the results of this tremendous discovery as soon as possible."7 Canada's role in the development of the weapon, Wrong argued, its possession of many of the secrets associated with it, and its control of major uranium sources, combined to place the government in a position of special responsibility. Crucial to the development of a coherent policy was sound scientific advice on such questions as " (a) Is the secret of the manufacture likely to be preserved or is its independent discovery probable in other countries? [Churchill had said publicly that others would master the processes within three or four years.] (b) ... is the process of manufacture likely to remain so elaborate and costly that the bomb could only be produced in two or three countries? (c) Is uranium likely to remain the principal ingredient? (d) What is the known distribution of deposits of uranium, thorium, and other actual or potential ingredients?"8 Wrong went on to analyze why one of the most popular early ideas for controlling the atom, placing it under the control of the United Nations Security Council (an idea publicly espoused by many Canadians within and beyond government), probably would not fly: "Since the Security Council is impotent to act in a dispute between its own permanent members and since the danger of another great war in present circumstances can arise only from such a dispute, it is optimistic to assume ... that... the bomb greatly enhances the authority of the Security Council by placing at its disposal an effective weapon against major aggression."9 How best to control the weapon, and what it all meant for Canada's own defence planning, could not be intelligently answered in the absence of advice on the technical questions earlier outlined, and others like it. But the need to do so was pressing. The bomb threatened to heighten, rather than lower, tensions among the great powers. Moreover, Canada had its own interests to protect. "|J]ealous eyes may be turned towards the sources of the essential ingredient and we may feel compelled ... to protect those sources within Canada. We may also find that our part in the development will lead for the first time to a serious effort to plant foreign agents in Canada with the object of securing information on secret processes."10 One early, and important, contribution to the process that Wrong set in motion was an analysis dated 20 August, encouraged by the Joint Intelligence Committee QIC], that attempted to work through the

39 Hiroshima and Its Aftermath

strategic implications of "atomic bombs and rocket propulsion." The analysis, prepared by Dr D. Jenness, chief of the Interservice Topographical Section, with the assistance of two physicists, "has made a great impression," noted a contemporary source "on the service members [of the jic]."11 The main points of the Jenness analysis are worth citing, for they were to figure prominently in the evolution of Canadian thinking on the subject. Jenness advanced six fundamental observations and then elaborated on that foundation a radically different future for the Canadian military: 1 The general principles of the atomic bomb are so well known that any country willing to spend the ... money can learn the secret of the manufacture. 2 Uranium ores are sufficiently widely spread that any country, even a large private corporation ... can readily gather a stockpile adequate for the production of atomic bombs. Furthermore, scientists are likely to find other sources of atomic energy beside uranium ores. 3 While atomic bombs have so far been transported ... by planes alone, some method is likely to be found for projecting them by rocket also. 4 ... Within ten or twenty years it may be possible to "rocket" atomic bombs against the city of New York from as far away as the coast of France in Europe, or of Brazil in South America. 5 No adequate defence against the atomic bomb is known. It may be that none is possible ... 6 International control of the manufacture and employment of atomic bombs is exceedingly difficult. Factories diverted to their manufacture can be readily camouflaged ... and no nation can be trusted not to use atomic bombs ... to gain world power, or perhaps even (e.g., Japan) merely to obtain revenge.12

Wrong continued to encourage the research and reflection needed to elaborate a policy in a radically changing environment. On 2 September a rising External Affairs officer, Charles Ritchie, submitted an analysis on the feasibility of having the newly created United Nations assume control of atomic weapons. Ritchie's conclusion was not encouraging. After working through the issues in play and the magnitude of the task that UN control implied, Ritchie noted, "But the most superficial review of the difficulties involved in international control of this new discovery must raise the question as to whether it would be possible at all in a world organized in nation states."13 The analysis, with the Jenness document and Wrong's initial memo to the prime minister, were sent to Major-General Maurice Pope (then serving on the Canada-u.s. Permanent Joint Board on Defence), one of Canada's most distinguished soldier-diplomats.

40 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

Pope replied in some detail on 21 September. Much of the response was devoted to rebutting Jenness' view that the day of large military forces was over and that much higher priority had to be devoted to intelligence gathering on nuclear matters. After noting that in the long history of warfare each advance in offence had eventually summoned into being a corresponding development in defence, Pope wrote, "The time to chant Dona ei requiem aeternam [grant them eternal rest] over the blasted bodies of the Fighting Services may not be just yet."^ The notion of international control struck him as Utopian: "Some earnest minds seem to believe that the closely guarded secret of the atomic bomb 'should immediately be placed under the control and supervision of the Security Council of the United Nations.' To this I shall content myself by observing that those who can bring themselves to believe that Great Powers, such as the United States or the United Kingdom, would be innocent enough to give the world ... information of such vital political and military importance are merely seeking to be disillusioned. How much of the whole secret may be in the possession of Canadian authorities I do not know, but ... under this head we should be content to follow the lead of the United States and the United Kingdom."15 Wrong also began pressing for some institutional means of drawing together the increasingly complicated fabric of nuclear affairs and ensuring that it received high-level attention. This step was greeted with less than complete enthusiasm by Howe and Mackenzie, who had run virtually all aspects of the Canadian nuclear enterprise since its inception. The growing complexity of the issues, however, and the impossibility of ignoring their political dimension led early the following year to the establishment of the innocuously named Advisory Panel on Atomic Energy. While the importance of this body would ebb and flow in the years ahead, it would remain throughout the period covered by this study the central forum for the consideration of the entire complex of issues posed by the atom and for the elaboration of Canadian policy. Meanwhile, the work of developing a general policy approach continued. The matter was becoming pressing; Lester Pearson, ambassador in Washington, was reporting that the u.s. was reexamining its policies and that high-level consultations with the Canadians and the British were likely to be proposed. On 29 October, apparently after some prodding by Wrong and Arnold Heeney, (the de facto secretary to the cabinet), C.J. Mackenzie produced detailed responses to a series of quite detailed questions they had put to him on the strengths and weaknesses of the Canadian nuclear program and on its relationship to American and British efforts.

41 Hiroshima and Its Aftermath

As a source of an essential strategic commodity, Canada occupied an important position. Canadian uranium deposits were neither as extensive nor as rich as those of the Belgian Congo. Their accessibility, security, and the prospect of further major finds, however, gave Canadian uranium a high profile with the Americans, who had negligible domestic sources to draw on. Although the Canadian research project had not been a major factor in the bombs dropped on Japan, it "may have a very great effect on future plans."16 Mackenzie argued that "The development work in Canada using heavy water was not duplicated anywhere else and was one of several alternative methods tried. Also our Chalk River plant will have the highest density of neutron emissions of any plant ... the Canadian development is the only one in the British Empire and ... acceptance of the British scientific personnel in the American plants was largely made possible by the existence of our plant in Canada."17 As to the dependence of Canada's larger partners on it: "As far as the United States is concerned they have always felt, I think, that they were quite able to carry on alone".18 The United Kingdom, however, was a different matter. " [W] e hold very strong cards at the moment as they have no atomic energy plant whatsoever in England, and it will take them some time to build even an experimental pile. So, for the moment and for the next year or so they will be dependent entirely on our development in Canada for experience in piles and it will be from our plant that they must obtain any of the by-products which look so promising in the field of medical research."19 A debate was underway in Britain whether to build large-scale plants (i.e. for the production of fissile material) or to extend the scope of Anglo-Canadian cooperation. Mackenzie had no doubt which was preferable. "The other school of thought, which in my opinion is by far the better formed, feels that the wiser plan would be to establish a large Commonwealth plant in Canada, which could supply the material for the other parts of the Empire, and to the research laboratories of which teams for the various Dominions and Britain could come for research work. Personally I think this latter is by far the wiser scheme unless there are some higher policy considerations unknown to me."20 The implications of the British domestic debate were far-reaching. Charles Ritchie noted, in material intended to brief Mackenzie King on the forthcoming Washington meeting, that "It would mean that the heart of the warmaking power of the British Commonwealth was located in Canada."21 Such a development would have been warmly welcomed by some. Well into October at least one cabinet minister publicly advocated a

42

Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

direct and major role for the Canadian air force in any future employment of atomic weapons. Colin Gibson, minister of national defence for air, noted in a radio broadcast to his constituents on 25 October: "It would appear that we - that is, Britain, the United States and Canada - cannot long regard the atomic bomb as our exclusive secret. We must, as a result, make our defence preparations in the light of the knowledge that before long our secret will be world property."22 There was a clear need to maintain a high level of military readiness, for even if Canada's commitments under international and regional agreements had yet to be defined, the country would be called upon to play "her full part in maintaining world security." The air force would be central in meeting future challenges: "It is the function of the Air Force to help develop adequate defence against the misuse of atomic power. It is the duty of the air force [sic]to develop the ability to strike at any aggressor's power to launch atomic destruction. "23 The thinking of the military professionals had evolved substantially since McNaughton's August presentation to the Cabinet Defence Committee. They now recognized diat real decision making respecting atomic weapons rested exclusively with the United States, rather than with some vague tripartite body. Their chief aims were to obtain a clear understanding of the new weapon, what it meant in terms of strategy and organization, and how it might be employed by Canada's armed forces. On 24 October General Foulkes, chief of the general staff, received a paper that his deputy had commissioned several weeks earlier entitled "The Atomic Bomb: Effect of its Discovery on Canadian Army Strategic Planning - Preliminary Considerations." The paper stressed, inter alia, the lack of precise information on which to base an assessment of the atom's military implications and urged the immediate creation of a high-level committee to acquire information and develop policy recommendations. In forwarding the study to Foulkes, his deputy noted: "We have no atomic bomb for use as a military weapon by our Armed Forces. We can expect to secure the advantage of its use so long as we operate in the event of war as allies of the u.s. who are apparently the only nation actually possessing the complete weapon."24 This, however, left too many contingencies uncovered in the eyes of an experienced military planner. "If the u.s. should remain neutral in some future war in which we were engaged [as initially had been the case in both world wars] we would be under the necessity of providing adequate defence against the hostile use of an A B [atomic bomb] as undoubtedly other nations will in due course possess the secret of its manufacture."25 From a professional military perspective the conclusion was clear: "This seems to

43 Hiroshima and Its Aftermath

lend emphasis to the urgent necessity of developing (either alone or in collaboration with us [sic]) a neutralizing weapon at the earliest possible date and of ensuring that the secret of the manufacture of the AB itself is known to us or to the UK so that we may have the advantage of the use of this super-powerful explosive in the event that we may be required to engage in war without the assistance of the us."26 Foulkes himself expressed close interest in the initiative, commenting on the margins of the memo that he had given a copy to the minister (D.C. Abbott) for information and promising to pursue the idea of a high-level committee. Evidently, however, the idea went no further. None of the primary and secondary material that I have reviewed, which includes archival material pertaining to Abbott and the proceedings of the cabinet Defence Committee and full cabinet, contains any direct or indirect evidence that the military case for the acquisition of an independent atomic arsenal was ever seriously debated, publicly or privately, in any of the major policy-making mechanisms of government. Nor, in retrospect, is the absence of a major debate surprising. Events at home and abroad were steadily urging Canadian decision makers to frame the increasingly complex atomic issues in an international context. In doing so, specifically Canadian interests rarely were given pride of place. WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE

The political environment was indeed evolving very rapidly. Some weeks earlier an event had occurred that brought home - in spades Wrong's rather tentative August warning that Canada could become a major target for foreign intelligence operations. On 5 September Igor Gouzenko, a young cypher clerk working in the military attache's office in the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, defected, taking with him documentary evidence of an extensive Soviet intelligence-gathering network operating in Canada, the United States, and Britain.27 After a number of false starts, worthy of an opera bouffe, he succeeded in persuading government officials that he - and the documents he had taken -were authentic. The impact was profound. Mackenzie King, for one, initially refused to believe it. "My own feeling," he wrote on 6 September, "is that the individual has incurred the displeasure of the Embassy and is really seeking to shield himself. I do not believe his story about their having avowed treachery. There is no doubt that most countries have their secret spies, but that is another matter. For us to come into possession of a secret code book - of a Russian secret code book - would be a source of major complications."28

44

Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

The truth, however, could not long be denied. The following day Norman Robertson, under-secretary of state for external affairs (and one of the key government participants throughout the Gouzenko affair), updated King on Gouzenko's revelations: "saw Robertson. His voice betrayed a tremendous concern. He said he had got particulars of what the police had and that everything was much worse than we would have believed ... [The documents] disclose an espionage system on a large scale. He said it went to lengths we could not have believed. Not only had Stettinius [u.s. secretary of state, 1944-45] been surrounded by spies, etc., and the Russian Government been kept informed of all that was being done from that source, but that things came right into our own country to a degree we could not have believed possible."29 It quickly became apparent that very high on the Soviet list of intelligence targets had been the Anglo-Canadian atomic project. So great was King's shock that he was led to make one of his rare admissions of error: "Churchill was right when he said it would not do to let the Russians have the secret of the atomic bomb. I thought Roosevelt was right when he said he felt an ally should know what we are doing ... I can see that Churchill had the sounder judgment."30 The news only got worse. On 24 September King read the Canadian security service report on Gouzenko's revelations. The Soviets clearly had gone to considerable lengths to target nuclear matters. The lines of the Soviet network "lead right into the Research Buildings here in Ottawa, the Laboratories in Montreal, to British scientists working there who have even more knowledge of the atomic bomb developments than almost anyone; to persons in our own External Affairs Department and in the Registry Office in Earnscliffe [official residence of the British High Commissioner]."31 For King the betrayal was complete. "I think of the Russian Embassy being only a few doors away and of there being there a centre of intrigue. During this period of war, while Canada has been helping Russia and doing all we can to foment Canada-Russian Friendship, there has been one branch of the Russian service that has been spying on all matters relating to location of American troops, atomic bombs, processes, etc. ... I am sure the whole business extends much further than we begin to know. I am also sure that what has taken place in Canada is taking place even under [sic] a vaster scale in the United States and Britain."32 Washington and London were quickly informed of Gouzenko's revelations, and numerous high-level discussions took place among the three governments concerned as to how best to deal with the matter. Clearly the Soviet networks had to be broken up - and quickly. On the other hand, the ensuing publicity could substantially reduce whatever prospects existed for coming to a general understanding

45 Hiroshima and Its Aftermath

with the Soviets in the aftermath of the war. In discussions in London early in October with senior British diplomatic and security officials, Robertson put the case for prudence: "Mr Robertson feared that public opinion, including the Canadian Parliament and the United States Congress, would be so stirred by the story of this Russian network stealing our secrets that prejudice would inevitably be brought both to the possibility of sharing with the Soviet government on terms some of our atomic secrets, and to the general prospects of financial and economic co-operation with Soviet Russia."33 The Gouzenko affair was, in many respects, scene i, act i, of the Cold War drama. It certainly touched off loud and persistent alarm bells in the three capitals most immediately concerned. In Canada it was not until February of the following year that a commission comprising two justices of the Supreme Court of Canada was established to sort out what criminal action had taken place.34 By then, however, the perception that the Soviets were not to be trusted was clearly in the ascendancy, the Soviet and Canadian ambassadors had been withdrawn from their posts, and strains were growing across the entire range of what would come to be called East-West relations.35 THE TRIPARTITE CONSULTATIONS

In the meantime, President Truman followed through with his plans to consult Britain and Canada on the future of the atom. Mackenzie King and Clement Attlee visited Washington in early November 1945, accompanied by a number of senior advisors, for an intensive round of discussions. The meeting was important for several reasons. Most immediately, it led to a public statement by die three leaders, each acting in his own name, on atomic energy and the principles that should govern its use. The Agreed Declaration of 15 November 1945 is the very earliest combined effort to grapple with the issues the atomic bomb had thrust upon the world. The approach that it encapsulated would prove influential for years to come in such related initiatives as the eventual establishment of the International Atomic Energy Agency and die Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. (Photographs of the chief participants are included in the illustrations at the beginning of this book.) The declaration opened with an acknowledgment that with the advent of nuclear weapons a qualitatively new instrument of destruction had entered international relations against which there could be no adequate defence and in the use of which no monopoly could long be preserved. The issues that the three leaders had met to address were

46 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

how " (a) to prevent the use of atomic energy for destructive purposes; [and how] (b) to promote the use of recent and future advances in scientific knowledge, particularly in the utilization of atomic energy, for peaceful and humanitarian ends."36 A careful course was laid out between these two uncomfortably yoked aims: We are not convinced that the spreading of the specialized information regarding the practical application of atomic energy, before it is possible to devise effective, reciprocal, and enforceable safeguards acceptable to all nations, would contribute to a constructive solution of the problem of the atomic bomb. On the contrary, we think it might have the opposite effect. We are, however, prepared to share, on a reciprocal basis with others of the united nations [sic], detailed information concerning the practical industrial application of atomic energy just as soon as effective enforceable safeguards against its use for destructive purposes can be devised.37

To these ends the three leaders announced their intention to have the nascent United Nations organization establish a commission to develop proposals • to enhance exchanges of scientific information for peaceful purposes; • to control atomic energy to the extent necessary to assure its peaceful use; • to eliminate from national armaments atomic weapons and all others adaptable to mass destruction; • to establish safeguards by way of inspection and other means to ensure compliance.

This declaration would become the basis, within a few months, of the United Nations Commission on Atomic Energy. The Washington meeting was important for another reason; it gave rise to what some observers believe was a seminal document in the evolution of Canadian policy on nuclear matters. Shordy before Mackenzie King's arrival in Washington, Lester Pearson, then ambassador to the United States, drafted a memo entitled "Canadian Memorandum on Atomic Warfare" intended for his prime minister's consideration. James Eayrs has written that "Pearson's memorandum on atomic energy control deserves a place among the great diplomatic state papers."38 After analyzing why atomic weapons represented a revolutionary and unprecedented development in the long history of warfare, Pearson warned that "unless there is agreement between nations regarding atomic bombs, there will be competition. Such competition ... would be the most bitter and disastrous armament race ever run ... any constructive solution of this problem of the war use of atomic energy

47 Hiroshima and Its Aftermath

must be international - not national. There is, in fact, no national solution. "39 Pearson then went on to outline what an international agreement might include. In addition to a prohibition of the manufacture or use of atomic weapons (except on instructions from the UN), provisions would be needed on the destruction of all existing weapons (or their transfer to the UN), the pooling of all scientific knowledge of atomic energy, and the creation, under the UN, of a commission of scientists to verify compliance. Pearson was too experienced to be sanguine as to the prospects for success of such a proposal; nonetheless "with the atomic bomb suspended over our heads, it would be madness not to attempt it. "4° It is ironic that a former officer of the service that Mr Pearson once led with such distinction should find himself obliged to accuse James Eayrs of excessive generosity in his assessment. Nonetheless, the Pearson memo is not, in my opinion, a particularly impressive piece. The five-point analysis is very largely drawn from the Jenness document discussed above - except for its silence on Jenness's sixth and final point flagging the very great difficulties associated with notions of "international control." Moreover, the prescriptive portion ignores all of the difficulties that had already been identified in earlier analytical pieces to which Pearson had access and contents itself with a set of pious aspirations. Elsewhere in his report of the Washington meeting Pearson commented that the effect of changes that King had suggested in an early draft of the agreed declaration had been to remove "much of the impression that the three conferees were shelving the problem by sending it to a Commission and that they had no fixed ideas about it themselves."41 In retrospect it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that although the impression was removed, the intention remained. Not for the last time would national governments toss into the lap of a weak and divided international organization a problem beyond their ability to resolve.42 King appears to have made no specific use of the Pearson memo during his discussions with Truman and Attlee, and the agreed tripartite text fell far short of what Pearson had in mind. Nonetheless, two of the ideas to which he gave voice - th t national solutions were no solutions and that international control, whatever its weaknesses, deserved an attempt - undoubtedly did exercise considerable influence in the months and years ahead. The third noteworthy outcome of the Washington meeting was one that attracted no public attention. On 16 November Truman, Attlee, and King reaffirmed their desire for "full and effective cooperation in the field of atomic energy between the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada" and directed the CPC to recommend to them "appropriate arrangements" for this purpose.43 The contrast between

48 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

the Agreed Declaration's public call for a climate of reciprocal confidence among states and the private renewal of the machinery needed to maintain a nuclear triumvirate seems to have struck no one as ironic. "[I]t is strange," as one observer has noted, "that no one pointed to the contradiction in the Washington proceedings - between the lofty protestations that the only hope for the world was to lay aside nationalist ideas, and a close three-power agreement based on the hopes of a virtual monopoly of the raw materials of atomic energy."44 Interestingly, and in contrast to the Quebec agreement, the text was drafted as an agreement among the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. While the ever-cautious King declined to sign until after he had secured the concurrence of his cabinet colleagues, Canada henceforward would be at the table in no one's name but its own. On Mackenzie King's return to Ottawa an event occurred that appears to have become the stuff of legend. In the very modest range of academic writings on Canada's early nuclear policies, some analysts have suggested that a major discussion of the acquisition of nuclear weapons took place in cabinet on 17 November 1945 and that the outcome was a conscious - and permanent - decision to renounce th strategic weapons option for Canada.45 The unstated implication seems to be that in the study of proliferation and nonproliferation issues, the Canadian example is so straightforward that analysts do well to ignore it as an early case study and devote their energies to other, more important matters elsewhere. The foregoing interpretation of the cabinet meeting in question however is based on a significant misreading of the historical record. Nuclear matters were indeed discussed at cabinet on 17 November. The records of the meeting however, make clear that the session was largely devoted to King and Howe informing their cabinet colleagues (in suitably guarded terms) of what had transpired at the Washington meeting earlier in the week and of the Anglo-Canadian wartime project. Nowhere is there any suggestion that the costs and benefits of Canada's acquiring the weapon for her own independent use were even raised, much less debated.46 Confirmation of this reading of the session - if an absence can be demonstrated - may be found in the diary of CJ. Mackenzie, who had participated in the Washington talks with King and Howe. His entry for 17 November reads: "At 4 PM I was asked to attend a full meeting of the Cabinet where the P.M. reported on the Washington trip on the atomic bomb proceedings. He handles these things very astutely and used this simple agreement which he was to sign [the CPC text] as a vehicle for exposing the whole project with its twenty million dollar cost to the Cabinet."47

49 Hiroshima and Its Aftermath

Although the difficulties in putting into effect the various prescriptions of the Washington declaration all lay ahead, the text itself was well received in Canada. Since the dropping of the weapons on Japan, Canadian public opinion had reflected a complex mix of relief, pride, shock and dismay. In October, leaders of both major opposition parties, the Conservatives and the CCF, had made statements in Parliament recognizing the revolutionary nature of atomic weapons, suggesting that there was no alternative to some form of international control of the deadly new devices, and endorsing the principle of collective defence. What precisely these ideas meant, however, in terms of Canadian policy was not developed. Some at least felt (as did a significant strand within the military leadership) that Canada should do whatever was necessary to maintain its military strength. During a late October debate on postwar defence policy one member of parliament noted that the United States had decided to stockpile atomic weapons and had two large plants already at work building up a reserve. "What are we doing here in Canada?" he asked, "Have we or are we to have any plants that will produce these bombs? Have we any arrangement with the United States about their production ... Canadian scientists have made important contributions to the development of modern weapons ... Constant, intensive scientific research and development should be the keystone of our defence policy."48 More frequently heard, however, was the sentiment that a radically new and enormously destructive element had been introduced into the affairs of humanity, and in the baleful atomic dawn no one had any particularly persuasive idea how to respond. The Agreed Declaration, accordingly, was greeted with some measure of relief. A course had been mapped that might lead to safety. On the same day that the document was signed in Washington, Louis St Laurent, acting in King's absence as secretary of state for external affairs, read the full text into Hansard, the parliamentary record. M.J. Coldwell, the leader of the CCF, the major party on the Canadian left, was moved to describe the declaration as "an historic statement." He was "sure that hon. members on every side of the house welcome it" and extended his congratulations to King, Attlee, and Truman for the decision they had reached.49 STATEMENT(S) OF POLICY The following month C.D. Howe made a brief statement in Parliament that, like the cabinet session of 17 November, is sometimes read as an early and permanent renunciation by Canada of strategic nuclear weapons. On 5 December Howe said, "We have not manufactured

50 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

atomic bombs, we have no intention of manufacturing atomic bombs, and therefore I should not like to have it suggested that any great sums of money have been spent in that occupation."50 Closer examination, however, suggests that the statement provides a very slender basis on which to rest the argument. Two days earlier Howe had been asked by G.K. Fraser, an opposition member of Parliament, how much Canada had spent in connection with the discovery and production of the atomic bomb. Howe, perhaps to score a debating point, responded that the answer would have to be "no expenditure," because Canada had not been working on developing the bomb. "It has been working on the development of atomic energy for peace-time purposes." If the member wished to rephrase his question, however, Howe would respond. On 5 December Fraser returned to the charge, and Howe replied that his objection had been to the form of the question rather than to the provision of information, since he did not want to have it suggested that any great sums of money had been spent on the weapon. It is clear that in implying that Canada's efforts had been directed exclusively toward peace-time purposes, Howe was being, at best, economical with the truth. His statement of 6 August had clearly recognized the military dimensions of the Canadian project. A more detailed "information statement" of 13 August - drafted by Mackenzi but issued in Howe's name - had been even more explicit: "The dropping of the first atomic bombs is, however, the culmination of the work of scientists from many nations, the pooling of the scientific and natural resources of the United States, Britain and Canada and the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars in the United States and smaller, but substantial, sums in Canada on plant and equipment in the most extensive scientific effort ever directed towards the attainment of a new weapon."51 In short, rather than a major statement of policy, Howe's brief statement of 5 December seems to have been little more than a by-blow in the usual cut and thrust of parliamentary debate - and perhaps a sign of Howe's personal sense of unease over where the wartime project had led. A major statement, however, was about to be made. On his return from Washington, King had promised the Commons that he would address the subject of atomic energy before year's end. He did so on 17 December, in the context of a motion seeking parliamentary approval of the Agreed Declaration. To read through the statement of 17 December is to recall the words of the poet who once described King as a man who did "nothing by halves - which might be done by quarters." King provided parliamen-

51 Hiroshima and Its Aftermath

tarians with background on the wartime cooperation between Canada, Britain, and the United States in the Chalk River project, as well as noting the inescapable duality of atomic energy as a threat and an opportunity. The basic scientific information on nuclear matters was already widely known. The "technical manufacturing processes," as well as control of much of the necessary raw material, were held in whole or in part by the three countries. However, this monopoly would not endure for long. The provisions of the Agreed Declaration were intended to head off "a desperate race in weapons of mass destruction." The proposed UN commission would be expected to formulate recommendations on the most effective means "of entirely eliminating the use of atomic energy for destructive purposes, and for promoting its widest use for industrial, commercial and humanitarian purposes." The United Nations organization itself was "not a sufficient answer to the problems of peace and security," but it was an important first step. The implications of atomic energy were so great that it was hard "to see a solution in anything short of some surrender of national sovereignty." Waxing poetic, King declaimed, "'over all nations is humanity'. It is devoutly to be hoped that the nations will not delay too long in welcoming, albeit in the form of some self-denying ordinance upon individual national sovereignties, a measure of world sovereignty sufficiently effective to maintain international security and to end all possibility of war."52 King claimed for Canada a generous measure of the prestige associated with developments in atomic research. Nonetheless, no attempt was made to address any specifically Canadian military or political interests respecting the weapon; to the extent that they existed, they were subsumed within the wider concerns of nuclear partners, allies, and humanity. As much through what it did not say, King's address faithfully reflected Pearson's thesis that national solutions were no solutions. Of the tripartite agreement in Washington to confirm and extend the work of the Combined Policy Committee, there was not a word. King's speech provoked little dissent from the major opposition parties. John Bracken, leader of the Conservatives, concluded in his response that "Our path as Canadians in clear. Collective security for humanity is possible only in international collective agreement. We must pay the price of international collective agreement. That price is the sacrifice of some degree of national sovereignty."53 The acting leader of the CCF, Angus Maclnnis, went even further: "[T]he atomic bomb has brought us to the stage where world government at the international level [sic] is not only a desirable thing, but a necessity. The choice before us is either world government or world destruction".54

5 2 Canada' s Early Nuclear Policy

Intellectual challenge came from the extremes of the political spectrum. Solon Low, speaking for the Social Credit party, saw no prospects for the international control of atomic weapons as long as the USSR remained a dictatorship. The democracies might comply, and their political systems were such that their commitments could be verified. No such confidence, however, could be placed in the undertakings of the Soviet Union or other totalitarian states, given their capacity to organize in secret, suppress dissent, and mislead any international inspection effort. "[S]o long as there are dictatorships amongst the great powers, an effective international solution of the atomic bomb problem is utterly impossible."55 Peace would be secure as long as the "Anglo-American people" maintained their supremacy, and they should do nothing to allow others to prepare a nuclear Pearl Harbor. "I plead with the government not to yield to this diabolical doctrine of surrendering our sovereignty to any supra-national government. We must be in a position in the next few years to act quickly and unfettered."56 Canada should meticulously keep the peace and pray that the Anglo-American people will be true to their sacred trust, but "they should be ready instantly, if necessary - and I emphasize diis very particularly - to rain fire on those nations who disregard their solemn pledges and wantonly wage war."57 The far left was equally unimpressed. In an interesting twist of fate, its spokesperson was Fred Rose, a communist who would be convicted of espionage the following year as a consequence of Gouzenko's revelations. Rose dismissed the Washington declaration as so much window dressing. The agreement "leaves in the hands of those who have it the power to use the atomic bomb at their discretion, and leaves the door open to an atomic armament race ... it has left in the hands of the United States, Great Britain and Canada not only a dangerous weapon of war, but a dangerous weapon of diplomacy."58 By leaving out the Soviet Union, a great power that had borne one of greatest wartime burdens, it was bound to sow dissension and distrust. The weapon and the declaration - were destabilizing influences: "From the point of view of equilibrium in diplomatic and political relations, it would have been better if the atomic bomb had been placed in the hands of all rather than in the hands of the Anglo-American nations."59 The secret should be handed over to an international committee, not at some future date but right away. As a neighbour of both the Soviet Union and the United States, and as a member of the British Commonwealth, it was incumbent upon Canada to "do everything in our power to cement that degree of unity needed throughout the world, and especially among those who have carried most of the burden in the war. Otherwise we shall have chaos and disaster."60

53 Hiroshima and Its Aftermath THE E V E N I N G OF THE FIRST DAY

It may be useful at this point to step back and try to describe where Canada's policymakers stood at this, the close of the first year of the nuclear age. Were Charles Dickens alive, he might describe the perio as the best of times and the worst of times. The war had been won; the peace was about to be lost. Deeply repugnant ideologies had been defeated by force of arms in Europe and Asia; and an equally malignant philosophy had been vastly strengthened. Victory had been secured; and over fifty million people, most of them noncombatants, lay dead. The creative genius of humanity would soon shower upon the world a cascade of marvels undreamt of by previous generations; and towering far above, being ever more carefully honed by talented and industrious workers, was an enormous sword capable of annihilating it all. One point is clear; the stereotypical view that Canada, after a bracing draft of "Methodism light," looked the atomic bomb in the eye, re nounced forever the acquisition and use of such works of the devil, and set out to save the world from them does not bear scrutiny. Other than the statement of 5 December by C.D. Howe, there is very little in die record to support such an interpretation. True, there were few public calls for Canada to acquire its own nuclear arsenal. Mackenzie King thought the weapon was a Frankenstein that could destroy civilization. Moreover, given the Prime Minister's well-known views and the general policy approach mapped out before Parliament in King's statement of 17 December, the Canadian military did not press their case for Canadian nuclear weapons. The realization spread steadily within and beyond government that no effective defence against the A-bomb was likely and that the option of acquiring the weapon was open to quite a wide range of countries - if they were prepared to commit the resources needed. Lester Pearson, whose influence would grow as Mackenzie King's waned, was convinced that the only way to avoid a catastrophe was to find some form of international control. There was, broad political support for the notion that if some measure of national sovereignty had to be sacrificed, it was a price worth paying. There was however, no question of Canada striking out unilaterally in this direction. Publicly and privately the impression was widespread that if Canada did not actually possess a supply of atomic bombs, it could readily acquire one if it so decided. The Agreed Declaration of 15 November, and Canada's very public association with it, can only have reinforced that impression. The wartime origins and military dimensions of the Canadian atomic research program were widely and publicly acknowledged. The program itself enjoyed substantial and growing public

54 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

support and was clearly, for most, a source of national pride. There is no record of anyone suggesting that Chalk River be shut down or uranium exports to the United States halted. Quite the contrary, the British decision to repatriate British scientists would cause considerable strain in the Anglo-Canadian relationship. C.J. Mackenzie, to judge from his diary entries, had used the occasion of the Washington conference - with the full support of C.D. Howe - to warn the British that the withdrawal of the British head of the Anglo-Canadian project would force Canada to align herself completely with the United States in nuclear matters and that "the Empire connection would be lost."61 No voices were raised, however, to argue that Canada should abandon the nuclear field. Several influential Canadian policymakers - including Mackenzie - would have warmly supported a British decision to locate a major production facility for weapons-grade fissile material in Canada, an arrangement that, as had been observed, would have located "the heart of the war-making power of the British Commonwealth" in Canada. The dominant impression one gets, looking back from a half a century, is of a country deeply embedded in its international relationships, one "growing up allied" in James Eayrs' evocative phrase. It is perhaps worth recalling that only with its citizenship bill of 1945 did Canada begin seriously to differentiate "Canadian national" from "British subject." The explosions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki had introduced a whole new range of political and security issues, few of which seemed amenable to solution. While it was far from clear that the newly established United Nations could deal with these unprecedented concerns, the alternatives held even less appeal. To the extent that Canada faced any foreign military threat, it arose largely from the country's geopolitical situation and clearly was best addressed as part of a collective endeavour. Moreover, in this strange new area of nuclear relations, thanks to its war-time research project Canada spoke as one of the two or three-most developed countries in the world. Discussing the future of civilization on terms of near equality with the Americans and the British was doubtless a heady experience for the representatives of a country that had been a de facto colony in 1939. Canada peered out on a new and uncertain landscape on the eve of 1946. The country had played a major role in securing victory in the bloodiest war in human history, only to discover that the fruits of that victory might soon become ashes and dust. The peace on which Canadians had expended much blood and more treasure and which they desired above all else to secure threatened to prove a will-o '-the-wisp. radical new element had been introduced into the affairs of humanity, an element that drew a line through history. A strange twist in the

55 Hiroshima and Its Aftermath

fortunes of war had destined Canada to an unaccustomed lead role in the unfolding drama. On one point all but the extreme could agree: if there were a real prospect of achieving a credible system for the international control of atomic weapons, every possible effort should be made to secure it.

5 The International Option And he'll say, as he scratches himself with his claws, 'Well, the Theatre's certainly not what it was. T.S. Eliot, "Gus: The Theatre Cat," in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

The story of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC), and of Canada's part in it, has been well told by others and needs no detailed recounting here.1 Clarity, however, requires a brief sketch of the major developments. The commission was established by the very first resolution of the General Assembly of the infant United Nations, adopted on 24 January 1946. It was charged with the development of recommendations to be submitted to the Security Council on the four specific areas that had been articulated in the tripartite Agreed Declaration the previous year. Thus, the UNAEC was to consider how to extend among nations basic scientific information for peaceful ends, to control atomic energy to ensure its use for peaceful purposes, to eliminate from national armaments atomic weapons and all others capable of serving as instruments of mass destruction, to develop an effective safeguards system, including inspections, and to protect complying states from the hazards of violations and evasions. The commission was to comprise all serving members of the Security Council, permanent and nonpermanent, together with Canada (who, given its nuclear credentials, obtained a permanent UNAEC seat). MINUET IN NEW YORK

Within days of the first UNAEC meeting, in mid-June 1946, diametrically opposed positions had been staked out by the United States (which expressed a readiness to relinquish its monopoly of atomic weapons if and only if a credible, effective system of international

57 The International Option

control could first be established) and the Soviet Union (which called for the immediate outlawing of the production and use of nuclear weapons and the destruction of all existing stocks). By the end of the year opposition had frozen into deadlock, a process hastened by American insistence on votes within the commission that demonstrated strong majority support for the u.s. stance - at the cost of crystallizing the very real differences between the two main protagonists. Efforts were made to break the deadlock when the UNAEC resumed its meetings the following year, but by the fall of 1947 it was apparent to all that the commission would bring forth no agreed recommendations. The UNAEC limped on until 1952, showing spasmodic signs of life, accomplishing little. Canada, with others, had worked hard to make the UNAEC a success. Prime Minister King had appointed General Andrew McNaughton, a distinguished scientist and military officer, as well as a former cabinet minister, to represent Canada on the Commission. McNaughton was personally convinced of the need for an international control system and may well have had a significant impact on Mackenzie King's approach to atomic weapons. As a former head of the National Research Council (and a student of Rutherford's at McGill when the century opened) McNaughton had played a key role in selecting C.J. Mackenzie to serve as his wartime replacement. Through Mackenzie, McNaughton had been kept generally aware of developments relating to atomic energy (one of the very few to be so treated) and had discussed them on occasion with the prime minister. As he noted respecting a conversation with Mackenzie King in June 1944, "I explained the nature of this device and the continuing danger in the area."2 His appointment to the UNAEC deepened his conviction that national solutions were no solutions when it came to nuclear weapons. "I think ... that in a war of long duration," the general told an interviewer a few years later, "it would probably not be possible to prevent the use of atomic weapons; that the worst danger to be feared is the surprise use of these terrible contrivances and, in consequence, that the real objective to be sought is to free the world from secrecy in atomic matters and to allay suspicions by giving a certainty of warning to the world, if nations should start to prepare for atomic war."3 By all accounts McNaughton played an active and effective role in the quest for an international solution. Lester Pearson, who had returned from Washington to Ottawa in 1946 to take over as under secretary of state for External Affairs, on several occasions visited New York to see what might be done. At headquarters, the panel on atomic energy that Hume Wrong succeeded in establishing in 1946 had as a major task the provision of information, guidance, and instruction to

58 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

McNaughton and his delegation. The 1946 legislation that established Canada's nuclear regulatory authority, the Atomic Energy Control Board, was explicitly cast to allow the board to deal with the several intrusive elements that a functioning international control system could be expected to have.4 The work of the UNAEC suffered from no shortage of high-level commitment or attention in Ottawa. Faced with the u.s.-USSR deadlock, however, there was little to be done. The failure of the commission was the first, and may still prove the most important, failure of the United Nations system. The initiative was the first - and probably the last - opportunity for humanity to keep nuclear weapons away from the not so playful claws of the territorial state. It remains an interesting field for speculation whether in some parallel universe the effort to develop an effective international system to control the destructive powers of the atom might have succeeded. Clearly, the obstacles were daunting. Even setting aside the political difficulties, the technical/administrative questions to be resolved were extremely thorny once one was past rote expressions of the need for international control. Were all weapons to be destroyed? If so, who could confirm that all had been? Once they were destroyed, what confidence could nations that had renounced the weapon have that replacements would not be covertly manufactured or that someone else had not embarked on a covert development program? Were the weapons to be entrusted to the Security Council? But what was the Security Council except a collection of states, some of whom were actual or potential rivals? Did this not amount to arming one's future opponent with one's most potent weapon? Was an international commission to take responsibility for the weapons? If yes, composed of whom, supported by what, and located where? Was the commission (assuming one could be formed) to have its own military forces to protect its lethal hoard? If so, how could it be made to answer to anyone? If not, what was to prevent some ambitious state from seizing it and its holdings? Who would guard the guardians? Knowledge of the fundamental physics on which nuclear developments rested was already widely dispersed and could not be recalled, nor could further basic research effectively be prohibited. Some controls on know-how might prove workable for some limited period, but the dynamic nature of science and technology was certain to undercut them in due course. Similarly with respect to raw materials. Uranium might be the strategic commodity par excellence for the moment, but more vigorous exploration would very probably increase known supplies. Moreover, thorium, a potentially important raw material, was already known to be widely distributed across the globe.

59 The International Option

Looming above these, the easy questions were the political problems. Knowing what we now know of the Stalin regime, it is hard to imagine that the Soviet dictator would have agreed in any circumstances to renounce nuclear weapons - and meant it. His country, alone, had suffered perhaps half of all military and civilian casualties sustained in World War II and had come perilously close to defeat by Hitler's armies. If a new and devastating weapon could be made, the Soviet Union would bend every effort to secure it. Indeed, the USSR had maintained an interest in nuclear developments throughout the war. Its weapons development program appears to have gone into high gear immediately after the bombs fell on Japan, well before the failure of the international control option. "Stimulated by news of American success, the Soviet dictator Stalin gave atomic research the highest priority in 1945. 'A single demand of you, comrades,' Stalin is reported to have told his scientists in 1945: 'Provide us with atomic weapons in the shortest possible time. You know that Hiroshima has shaken the world. The equilibrium has been destroyed. Provide the bomb - it will remove a great danger from us.'"5 Renouncing such an instrument would have run directly contrary to the core lessons that national history, political ideology, and personal experience had taught Stalin and his party about the acquisition and exercise of power. It is also difficult to see how the United States could ever have abandoned its weapons. No doubt there were some within the American administration who might have been prepared to do so in exchange for an iron-clad system of international control. Moreover, the United States seems not to have embarked upon a major build-up of its atomic arsenal - as distinct from keeping its wartime production pipeline operating - until sometime in 1947. As of April of that year the total American atomic arsenal reportedly consisted of seven usable weapons.6 The domestic opposition to any abandonment, however, would have been ferocious. The redoubtable General Groves, for one, evidently saw an international control system as a chimera and its pursuit as potentially prejudicial to vital American interests. Late in 1945 he had given voice to his opinions in testimony before the u.s. Senate's special committee on atomic energy. Early in the new year he elaborated his views in a confidential internal document. Groves did not dispute the theoretical attractions of "a hard-boiled, realistic, enforceable, world-agreement ensuring the outlawing of atomic bombs."7 He simply did not believe that it was achievable; outlawing war itself would be an easier task. The implications for American defence policy were inescapable: "If there are to be atomic weapons in the world, we must have the best, the biggest and the most."8

6o Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

Groves' views were hardly unique. In August 1946 the United States passed legislation (the Atomic Energy - or McMahon - Act, after its chief sponsor) that made illegal the transmission to foreigners of information pertaining to nuclear matters, a development suggestive of the intense possessiveness with which some Americans had come to regard their arsenal. When leading American senators finally learned in 1947 dial Roosevelt, in the Quebec Agreement of 1943, had committed the United States to consult Britain before the atomic bomb was used, their reactions ranged from the amazed to die apoplectic. Senator B.B. Hickenlooper, chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy, wrote privately to the secretary of state that he was "shocked and astounded by the information" and that his views were fully shared by his congressional colleagues.9 Some of the wartime tensions in the Anglo-American relationship had arisen from the Americans' determination not to have the peaceful applications of their hard-won and very expensive nuclear program siphoned off by the British, their chief allies in the struggle. That the far more threatening military applications could be handed over to potential enemies without a domestic revolt is highly improbable. One man who directiy witnessed American efforts to secure an international control system clearly had his doubts. Noting the suspicions of some that American insistence that the veto not apply in Security Council consideration of atomic matters was intended to provoke a Soviet rejection the u.s. plan, McNaughton's biographer wrote: "McNaughton went almost as far as that. He said the insertion of the veto question and the punishment clause made the Baruch Plan [the core of the u.s. position] 'insincerity from beginning to end.' It was no more than 'a sop to public opinion' and a device to ensure that the American monopoly would continue."10 Similarly, in Britain international efforts to develop an effective control system played little part in London's decision to develop its own independent arsenal. Several key British decisions to proceed were taken in 1946 and early 1947, well before the failure of the UNAEC had become apparent. Winston Churchill had made his realist's appreciation of the weapon clear. "You may be quite sure that any power that gets hold of the secret," he wrote in 1945, "will try to make the article and that this touches die existence of human society. This matter is out of all relation to anything else that exists in the world ... I do not believe there is anyone ... who can possibly have reached the position now occupied by us and the United States."11 If an effective international system to control nuclear weapons has been developed in that parallel universe, it is indeed many removes from ours - and inhabited by an intelligent life form.

6i

The International Option

TRIANGULAR ANGULARITIES

Tripartite cooperation on nuclear matters, though far removed from the glare of publicity associated with the UNAEC, fared little better. Although Truman, Attlee, and King had formally committed their countries to cooperation at the Washington meeting, it proved difficult to translate their undertaking into action. Lester Pearson, who represented Howe on the CPC when C.D. was unavailable, was clearly uneasy at the prospect of Canada being drawn more deeply into the relationship. "Frankly, I feel that, as a junior third party in this Committee," he wrote in December 1945, "we may be dragged along in directions where we might not desire to go but over which we would have little control. Would it be possible for us to leave the Policy Committee ... and regulate our association with it [on an ad hoc basis]?"12 Nonetheless, the CPC did produce a draft memorandum of agreement and submitted it in due course to the three capitals. New developments, however, quickly complicated the prospects for formalizing the basis for trilateral cooperation. At a February meeting of the CPC the British, with no prior consultation, informed the Canadians and the Americans of their plans to construct, in the United Kingdom, a large-scale plutonium production facility and to repatriate promptly their personnel from Canada.13 In doing so the United Kingdom managed to strain its ties with both its partners simultaneously. From Canada's perspective it appeared that the British were unilaterally changing the basis of the original Anglo-Canadian project just when their assistance was most needed with the large NRX reactor then approaching completion at Chalk River. (The decision also foreclosed on the possibility of Chalk River - and NRX - becoming the chief locus of nuclear expertise in the Commonwealth.) As CJ. Mackenzie noted in his diary on 14 February: "[W]ent to see Mr Howe to approve [sic] message which he is sending down to the Combined Policy Committee. He has bluntly said that the partnership arrangement between the U.K. and Canada will come to an end when Cockcroft returns, as withdrawa of the British group is, in essence, changing the original partnership."14 The Americans were no less displeased by the British announcement. No doubt, latent great power rivalry played its part. There were, however, other, more immediate factors at work. The CPC meeting coincided with the public release in Ottawa of information on the Gouzenko affair, a matter hardly likely to have allayed the ever present American security concerns. A British decision to proceed with a plutonium production pile would lead to British pressure for maximum access to American technical know-how, expertise that the United States had ever less reason to share. Moreover, a substantial British program

62

Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

would increase pressure on scarce uranium resources, the exhaustion of which was already being forecast. In addition, the Americans argued that Britain was strategically exposed; possession of an atomic capability might simply encourage a lightning strike on the United Kingdom to seize it.15 A meeting two months later, on 15 April, confirmed the AngloAmerican impasse. As George Bateman, Howe's man in Washington reported: "At the meeting of the CPC this afternoon little was accomplished except to emphasize the fundamental differences between die u.s. and the UK."16 For Bateman, "The real pressure behind die British desire to have a firm agreement and a definition of 'full and effective cooperation' lies in the fact that they ... need a good deal of information from the u.s. on engineering design, construction and operation ... since v-j Day there has been practically no interchange of information of any value and ... they cannot proceed with the work they have undertaken ... the u.s. does not want to give the UK the information desired and I would consider it doubtful if any solution satisfactory to the UK will be found."17 Canada and Britain, with some difficulty, did come to an understanding under which some key British personnel remained, or were replaced, at Chalk River. British scientists continued to enjoy extensive access to the facility and interchange with its Canadian staff. Nonetheless, the Anglo-Canadian stage of the project was over. Henceforward Canada would be in complete control of the Canadian program, as Britain would control the UK project. The directors of each program were authorized to exchange personnel as they thought appropriate. Although British scientists would long play a distinguished role in its work, C.D. Howe, for one, was anxious to see the Canadian program become as autonomous as possible. "Having spent some thirty million dollars of the taxpayers' money in atomic energy work," he wrote in May 1946, "my greatest desire is to put our project in such position that it cannot further be interfered with from outside this country."18 No such accommodation was reached in Anglo-American dealings. On two separate occasions Attlee wrote to King seeking to enlist him in the British campaign to gain broader access to u.s. nuclear know-how. The Canadians, however, refused to be drawn into the debate. American doubts respecting the British program continued to grow, and passage of the McMahon Act limited such room for manoeuvre as Washington possessed - had it wished to exercise it. The search for an international control system may also have played some small part in American reluctance to see Britain acquire its own weapons. In 1946, in dismissing British complaints that the Americans had not lived up to the

63 The International Option

commitments they had made at the tripartite meeting in Washington the year before, the American secretary of state advanced several arguments. Among them was the suggestion that "it would clearly be difficult for the U.S., without exposing themselves to a charge of hypocrisy, to enter into an arrangement for the exchange of information with the U.K. at a time when they were working for a system of control by the United Nations.'n9 One interesting insight into the attitudes of Canadian policymakers emerges from the material on this latest phase of the trans-Atlantic debate. In late November Arnold Heeney, secretary to the cabinet (and convener of the Advisory Panel on Atomic Energy) commented to Lester Pearson on the British prime minister's efforts to enlist Canada as an ally. During an earlier round of the debate the Americans had told the British that Canada also opposed the construction of a plutonium production facility in the United Kingdom; the British had lost no time in asking Ottawa to confirm or deny the American account. Heeney's comments suggest that at least some influential Canadian actors would have been receptive to a new proposal for a joint AngloCanadian program and saw no political, moral, or other objections to Britain's deciding to go it alone in its quest for an atomic arsenal.20 While the CPC achieved little as a policy forum in 1946 and 1947, the broader international environment continued to evolve. For the most part the news was not good. Postwar reconstruction in Europe and economic conversion at home were daunting challenges, the euphoria of victory was gone, and the bright hopes and brave aspirations articulated in the United Nations charter were fading. The Soviet Union was increasingly seen as inimical to Western values and interests. Ironically, the darkening international environment would serve regularly to remind the tripartite countries of the need for cooperation among them. A 1946 assessment of Soviet foreign-policy aims prepared for the prime minister captures the spirit of the times. Short-term prospects of major hostilities, the paper argued, were slight. The USSR had suffered so heavily and its need for a period of reconstruction was so evident that it seemed improbable its leadership would deliberately provoke major hostilities. Early acquisition of atomic weapons, an internal power struggle were Stalin to die suddenly, or miscalculation could modify this assessment. On balance there appeared to be no imminent danger of a new war. The longerterm picture, however, was sombre, for "there are powerful forces at work which may in the end precipitate the struggle between the Soviet Union and the Western World."21 Ideology was a factor, though it was unlikely to prove dominant: "Soviet foreign policy will be dictated less by ideological considerations

64

Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

than by a realistic estimate of Soviet interests as they are understood in the Kremlin."22 There was however an inherent tension between the Soviet police state and the Western democracies that augured poorly for peaceful relations between them. Moreover, the USSR was an expanding power, and there were as yet no signs of limits to its appetite for further expansion. While Stalin's regime was not prone to gamble, it would exploit opportunities as they presented themselves: the Soviet government could be expected to pursue a course combining the deliberate and careful consolidation of recent gains with the identification of possible weak spots in the positions of its adversaries. Such a policy might operate on the political, economic, or military planes. The Soviet Union had already fixed upon its policy toward the Western powers: to divide the Western world against itself and increase tension. This approach, while incompatible with friendship and cooperation would not, however, necessarily lead to war. A major factor in the Soviet calculation would be the reactions of the Western powers. "They have a healthy respect for the immense industrial resources of the United States and for its war potential. They are aware of the attraction which western democratic ideas exercise over the minds of peoples all over the world."23 Western signs of weakness would encourage more aggressive Soviet policies. At the same time, an overly belligerent Western response could impel the USSR to strengthen its security by further annexations or the infiltration of strategically located countries. In considering appropriate policy responses, "it can be assumed that the United Nations, in its present form, will not provide the effective means of preventing such a struggle. While the United Nations may be competent to prevent minor war between smaller nations, it cannot, under its present Charter effectively curtail the complete freedom of action of a Great Power."24 Moreover, " [i]t cannot be assumed that the world disarmament plans now under consideration in New York will eventually become realities or that the effective control of atomic energy on a world scale may be instituted."25 Western-Soviet relations, already strained, were likely to deteriorate further: It is all too probable that this situation may end in war. The best likelihood of averting such a catastrophe would be for the Soviet Government to be convinced of the strength and unity of the western democracies and at the same time persuaded that they have nothing to fear from them ... they might then postpone indefinitely the accomplishment of their ultimate aims and the world might settle into a period of uneasy peace. If this analysis is correct, we cannot afford to risk being unprepared in the event of war. The danger that Soviet policies may end in aggression cannot

65 The International Option safely be ignored and it becomes essential in self-protection to consider the defensive measures entailed by the possibility of Soviet aggression.26 A MILITARY FUGUE

Canadian military thinking about atomic matters underwent an important evolution in this period, largely due to the impact of two men who would remain influential figures in the defence sector well into the 19505. As the end of World War II approached, Ottawa, like other capitals, became increasingly aware of the large and growing role played by science and technology in the hostilities. In February 1946 Dr O.M. Solandt, a bright young Canadian who had worked with the British army on weapons development was appointed Director General of Defence Research. Solandt, a civilian, had gone to Britain in 1939 to pursue advanced studies in physiology. When the war broke out, he was approached by the British military to analyze why some British tank crews lost consciousness when they fired their weapons. So impressed were the British authorities with Solandt's work that he was made superintendent of the British Army Operational Research Group and given the rank of colonel.27 Solandt's 1946 assignment would allow him to play a major role in shaping Canadian military research policy for years to come. His primary tasks, to be accomplished within one year, were to review Canada's defence-related research and to develop an organization that would ensure that the country's fighting services kept up with the scientific and technical developments on which modern warfare increasingly depended. Solandt's efforts would lead to the creation of the Defence Research Board (DRB) as a fourth arm of the military in March 1947, to the transfer to the DRB of all NRC military research - except the atomic energy project - and to Solandt's own appointment as the board's first chairman, a position equal in rank and influence to those of the three service chiefs. Of equal importance, the exercise led to a clear articulation of what Canada should and should not undertake in the field of defence research. Solandt set out his views in a document entitled "Policy and Plans for Defence Research in Canada: A Preliminary Review by the Director General of Defence Research," dated May 1946 and subsequently examined by the cabinet defence committee. To judge from his later speeches and writings, his basic approach changed little in the decade

66 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

in which he directed the country's overall effort. Throughout his tenure he would stress that Canadian defence research had to be focused on a relatively small number of projects, that it had to yield first-rate scientific results, and that, absent an overriding national need, it had to avoid overlap and duplication relative to the programs of Canada's principal allies. Prepared at a time when the country was in full transition from war to peace, the document is worth close attention. Solandt took as his point of departure the proposition that "The defence of Canada requires that we be continually prepared to make and use the most up-to-date weapons of war."28 This could be achieved only by "(a) maintaining in an active and progressive state the whole chain of effort ... for all those classes of weapons that we would produce in Canada; (b) maintaining a nucleus of men skilled in the problems of those weapons, which for one reason or another, will not be produced in Canada."29 These considerations led to certain basic principles that were to govern Canada's cooperation with others respecting defence research and development: " (a) Canada wishes to maintain the closest possible collaboration and to have free interchange of information and equipment with the UK and the u.s. (b) Canada wishes to achieve the greatest possible degree of interchangeability of equipment with the UK and the u.s. (c) Canada must retain the initiative in planning her defence research and development programme but this initiative will always be conditioned by (a) and (b) above."30 Solandt appears to have held no particular brief at the time for or against atomic weapons, although he believed that they deserved special attention as a class of weapons that (with bacteriological and chemical arms, guided missiles, supersonic aircraft, and radar) "presented the greatest dangers for the future." He was well aware of their devastating effects, having participated personally in a British survey mission despatched to Japan in the fall of 1945 to assess the damage done to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was disinclined, however, to see them as the ultimate weapon; in his view the scale of destruction wrought by the A-bomb was not dissimilar to that caused by conventional weapons, although it was now far easier to achieve.31 It may well be that an independent capacity to manufacture and deploy such weapons would have held some appeal for the DRB chairman; some years later he would argue vigorously for the acquisition of tactical weapons for the Canadian armed forces. In the aftermath of the war, however, the country was anxious to demobilize as quickly as possible, military budgets were shrinking fast, and neither the Canadian public nor its political leadership was prepared to sustain the massive militar expenditures of the rapidly fading war years. A large, costly, prestige-

67 The International Option

driven military project that violated most of Solandt's principles regarding selectivity and linkage with allied efforts would have had very few supporters either within government or beyond it. In addition, the growing potential of the peaceful uses of atomic energy, the increasing stress that government ministers placed on this aspect of the program, and bureaucratic politics militated against the military dimension of the Canadian atomic energy program. While CJ. Mackenzie may well have been relieved to transfer the NRC'S military research projects to the DRB, he remained clearly committed to the atomic energy project (which in terms of personnel and budgets exceeded the sum of all other NRC-sponsored military projects). In the circumstances, Solandt made no claim to the Chalk River facilities; he did however argue for the creation within the military of a small research group to stay abreast of nuclear developments and of their strategic, tactical, and material implications. Solandt's approach to Canada's defence research endeavours dovetailed neatly with the thinking of Brooke Claxton, who assumed the National Defence cabinet portfolio in December 1946, the first minister to assume responsibility for all three fighting services since the outbreak of the war. Claxton took on his position at a pivotal moment: "Canada had left isolationism behind, thus implicitly accepting for the first time the notion of a significant-sized armed force during peace. But William Lyon Mackenzie King's government was firmly committed to drastic cuts in the defence budget to free up funds for family allowances, veterans' benefits, and other new social programs. Claxton would help determine some of the choices that Canada made."32 In two memoranda drafted early in 1947 and addressed to the prime minister but intended as well to influence his colleagues on the Cabinet Defence Committee, Claxton set out his own views on the country's defence needs. While he accepted the rationale for deep cuts in the defence budget, Claxton clearly wanted to provide the forces with a viable mandate, and the resources necessary to carry it out. Equally clear is that he envisaged the chief task in the political battles that lay before him as the preservation of core capacities and resources to serve as the centres around which to expand the armed forces should the need ever again arise, rather than the launch of costly new military projects. Claxton argued that although major hostilities were unlikely in the next five "or even ten years," political and technical developments "face North America with the necessity of taking active measures to defend itself."33 While the logic of continued Canada-u.s. military cooperation was inescapable, Canada should not sit back passively and allow the United States to assume the full burden. "Canada's part in joint

68 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

defence should be especially related to the defence of Canada and to doing the things that we can and should do in preference to the United States, particularly in the North. "34 North America, in any major new hostilities, was unlikely to be the principal target. Were it to be attacked, the most likely aim would be to prevent the industrial strength of the United States and Canada from being brought to bear on a conflict elsewhere, "to contain the war effort of North America in this continent." In any new conflict beyond North America, Canada's part would likely resemble the role it had assumed in the two previous world wars. There would be time for the country to mobilize its military and industrial capacity; hence there was no need to keep large reserves in being. The basic role of the regular forces was to serve as the core around which major new forces could be rapidly built up. At the same time existing capacities should not be lightly abandoned. In a passage that may well have been drafted with the Canadian atomic energy project partially in mind, Claxton wrote, "We should, however, through research, assistance to industrial development, etc., maintain and increase our knowledge and industrial skills so that we would lose no time in getting into production."35 The defence minister's views won support from a powerful ally when Arnold Heeney commented favourably on them in March 1947. He wrote to Claxton, "Ideally, we should as a small country with limited resources ... 'specialize' intensively as between Services and ... in concert with our larger partners, the United Kingdom and the United States."36 In what seems to have been a lightly veiled reference to Canada's nuclear endeavours, Heeney concluded, "Even at this stage we can concentrate in 'defence science'; in the field of research and, to some extent, development we can do something which actually counts."37 Looking back from this distance, the impression one gets of Canadian thinking on defence matters at the time is an amalgam of concern to preserve a basic core of professional military capabilities as defence budgets were radically reduced; confidence that the country faced few real external threats in the near term; and a conviction that if Canada were again called upon to go to war, it would do so as part of an alliance of like-minded states. Atomic weapons were recognized as a major new instrument of war. They were, however, as yet only usable in a strategic role and remained, for the moment, a monopoly of Canada's most powerful ally. Moreover the prime minister was known to oppose them and had publicly committed his government to the attempt to secure an effective system of international control.38 While it was important that the Canadian military kept abreast of developments and that the country maintained the research and development

69 The International Option

strengths it had already achieved in the nuclear field, the military case for an independent Canadian arsenal was unlikely to attract many advocates within the government, or among the Canadian electorate. NUCLEAR GOALS AND INTERESTS

Within the context of tripartite nuclear relations described earlier, Canada's chief interests were to avoid being drawn into the AngloAmerican debates, to maintain effective bilateral cooperation with each of her larger partners, and to protect her own freedom of action respecting Canadian uranium resources and the increasingly important nuclear development program. In pursuit of these limited objectives, Ottawa was clearly successful. No major breaks occurred with either London or Washington; Canadian uranium was kept out of the reach of the Combined Development Trust, despite the continuing Anglo-American debate over supplies; and the domestic program moved ahead at a brisk pace. In July 1947 NRX (for, as mentioned, National Research Experimental), the full-scale reactor for which ZEEP had served as a model, went into operation at Chalk River. Although its construction had proved more difficult and had taken longer than initially forecast, NRX quickly proved itself an exceptionally versatile and powerful instrument. With a rating of 20 megawatts (thermal) it would prove itself in due course a highly efficient instrument for the production of radioisotopes, as well as a much more efficient plutonium producer than the American graphite reactors. Among its features was a capacity to accept thorium rods, a portion of which could be converted, under irradiation, into 11-233, a fissile material. In addition, its scope as a research facility was exceptionally broad. In short, with NRX Canada had provided itself with a first-class facility that could be used to address a wide range of potential military and civilian applications of nuclear energy, as well as pure and applied areas of atomic research. No such success attended the quest for an international system to control the atom's destructive potential. By the fall of 1947 the logjam in the UNAEC still showed no signs of giving way. Two years after Truman, Attlee, and King had held out the international option as a solution to the problem of the atom, there was precious little progress to report. In October, Marcel Cadieux, an External Affairs officer who had become secretary to the Advisory Panel on Atomic Energy, tried to work through what it meant for Canada. The document that he produced was addressed to only three persons: Lester Pearson as undersecretary, Arnold Heeney as secretary to the cabinet, and Andrew McNaughton as head of the Canadian delegation to the UNAEC. I have found no record of the Cadieux memorandum (dated 21 October

70 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

1947) ever being formally submitted to the prime minister, cabinet, the cabinet Defence Committee, or even the Advisory Panel. The analysis of the issues that the failure of UNAEC posed for Canada, however, and the policy recommendations advanced would come to exercise considerable influence in the months and years ahead. Cadieux argued that the facts had to be faced squarely: "The plain truth of the matter is that if there is no agreement between the USSR and the United States, there is an atomic armament race going on. Our attitude and policy should be determined therefore in the light of our appreciation of the overall strategic position and the possibilities of war breaking out."39 One of two choices loomed. One possibility was simply to continue to leave atomic weapons development to the United States. The chief advantage here was that the Soviets would have less reason to target Canada directly. On the other hand, Canada's access to the entire nuclear field would remain constrained, a factor that could result in the country lagging behind the United States as civilian applications of atomic energy became feasible. "Besides, in case of war, we may need to expand our facilities here to manufacture atomic bombs and our inadequate preparations may involve a catastrophic delay."40 A better option for Canada, in Cadieux's view, was "an alliance for all practical purposes, in regard to the development of atomic energy, between the states which are the hard core of the Western bloc and which would bear the brunt of a war against the USSR." 41 The approach would pose some problems for the United States, where a revision of the McMahon Act would be required. It would also hold benefits for Washington, however, as it would permit the dispersal of atomic facilities. For Canada, any additional risks were limited: "If the USSR were to attack the United States, we would be involved in any case and our chance of survival would depend partly on a good dispersal of the nuclear fuel, also partly on our ability to out-produce the USSR and to launch quick and powerful retaliatory attacks."42 Indeed, attainment of such a capacity could serve as a powerful deterrent to an attack by the Soviet Union and an inducement for the acceptance of a general political settlement as well as the international control of atomic energy. "Unless there is agreement between the USSR and the United States on the control of atomic energy," Cadieux concluded, "our advantage lies in assisting the United States by all the means in our power to maintain their advance in the atomic race and to make sure, even at greater apparent or even real risks to ourselves that we are on the winning side. The stronger our position, the less chance there is of a Soviet attack, it seems."43 Cadieux thought it important that Canada and other Western countries not abandon the UNAEC process: let the Soviets take the blame for blocking the creation of an international control system. In addi-

71 The International Option

tion, if a wider settlement with the USSR were ever achieved, it might become possible to secure agreement on atomic matters as well. Nonetheless, Canada could not rely on the UN process for its own security, could not abstract itself from the growing U.S.-USSR rivalry, and was therefore best advised to ally itself firmly in nuclear matters with its giant southern neighbour. It followed from the analysis that Canada would associate itself more vigorously with British efforts to secure greater access to American expertise, in exchange for integration of planning, research, and development in atomic matters. In due course, Ottawa might have to increase its expenditures on its nuclear facilities, revise its civilian defence and security approach to reflect its closer association with the United States, and establish appropriate bilateral machinery - perhaps through the Permanent Joint Board of Defence - to implement Canada-u.s. cooperation. Heeney wrote back ten days later, registering a number of significant caveats. He thought, for example, that it was too soon to conclude diat the UNAEC process was dead; that Cadieux misunderstood the Canadian nuclear program if he thought it could be readily adapted to weapons production; and that the United States almost certainly would not agree to dispersing its facilities unless driven to it by problems of raw material supply. He also cautioned against Canada taking on a lead role in the matter: "We are not yet at the stage to take the initiative you suggest. We are a much more junior partner than most people realize and, as I see it at the moment, we must await developments, first in the UN Commission and secondly in U.S.-U.K. relationships."44 He also accepted however, that the collapse of the UNAEC was a very real possibility, and that the implications of such a development needed to be addressed. Absent an American-Soviet agreement, "I agree entirely that we have no alternative to very close association with the United States."45 BACK TO THE BALL

These somewhat ethereal exchanges were to return to earth quite abruptly before the end of the year. In December the embassy in Washington reported, to the surprise of officials in Ottawa, that the Americans wanted to reexamine the entire basis for tripartite cooperation and were considering convening a meeting of the CPC - the first in many months - for the purpose. A number of considerations prompted the American change of attitude. The newly established American Atomic Energy Commission had largely taken over u.s. domestic nuclear policy from the u.s. military. At the State Department George Kennan, recently returned from the American Embassy in Moscow, had been tasked with addressing the international dimensions of atomic

72

Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

policy. In addition, influential congressional voices continued to press the administration to disencumber itself of the 1943 obligation to consult Britain on the possible use of atomic weapons, a commitment seen as an unacceptable constraint on American freedom of action. Most importantly, American supplies of uranium (presumably under the impact of a decision to build up the nuclear arsenal) were coming under severe pressure as their primary source, the mines in the Belgian Congo, approached exhaustion. Ironically, the British, by dint of vigorous acquisition efforts, had secured substantial supplies of uranium for their program, even though it was still largely in the planning and construction phase. On 4 December Kennan briefed Hume Wrong (then Canadian ambassador in Washington) on American plans. As Wrong reported the next day to Ottawa, the first aim of the proposed meeting would be "to find a realistic basis of co-operation between the three countries in present conditions."46 The question of raw material supplies would be the second major subject. "In this connection the only point that he stressed was their desire that a large stockpile should not be accumulated in the United Kingdom ... they wished on strategic grounds that everything above what was needed [for current operations] should be stored at a safe distance from the Continent of Europe."47 The Americans recognized that they would have to give something. Kennan told Wrong that the administration had secured a liberal interpretation of the McMahon Act that would allow it to exchange information deemed to be in "the national interest," a step that would facilitate cooperation with the UK, Canada, and other close allies. The United States clearly expected little more from the UNAEC. When Wrong raised the subject, Kennan replied: "In spite of the best efforts, the Commission had reached a state of deadlock. They wished it to continue its work, but believed that they could not allow its existence to block more limited international co-operation between friendly countries and that a public statement to this effect would probably be required before long."48 Ottawa was intrigued, prepared to participate, but clearly not anxious to be drawn into another protracted Anglo-American debate. The instructions prepared for Wrong (who would speak for Canada as Howe's alternate in the CPC) are illuminating. The dominant note was caution; Wrong should not overplay the Canadian hand. While Canada had had an important role in the development of atomic energy, "our position has been, of necessity, and will continue to be, secondary to that of the two major partners, particularly the United States."49 That said, the Canadian representative should guard against being hurried into an agreement simply because American security and congressional concerns were now urging one. Ottawa would want

73 The International Option

to examine very carefully any proposed new basis for tripartite cooperation. Care should be taken not to torpedo the UNAEC. Canada wanted the commission to remain viable. As to specific Canadian interests, Ottawa restated its intention to retain full control over Canadian uranium supplies and did not wish to take a more active part in the Combined Development Trust. Canada might be prepared to give the United States and the United Kingdom exclusive first access to the purchase of Canadian uranium beyond its own requirements but would accept no CDT oversight role in the disposition of Canadian supplies. The prospect of stockpiling British uranium in Canada held little appeal; Wrong was directed simply to reserve his position if the suggestion were made. Canada's chief interest in the exercise was in broadening the basis for exchanges between Canadian and American scientific personnel: "the real Canadian interest in these discussions lies in the possibility that they may result in really useful information being made available to us and to the United Kingdom ... our chief interest is in widening to the maximum extent these 'areas of collaboration' and every opportunity should be taken to secure u.s. consent to such arrangements."50 On 23 December members of the Advisory Panel on Atomic Energy briefed C.D. Howe and Louis St Laurent (the newly appointed secretary of state) on the outcome of the week-long Washington discussions. The Canadian team had reason to feel satisfied with the outcome. Prospects for securing greater access to American scientific expertise and thereby the development of the Canadian program, appeared to be good; no challenge to Canada's exclusive control over its own uranium had emerged; the United Kingdom and the United States seemed to have found a basis for renewed cooperation; and the draft language pertaining to the CPC and the new Combined Development Agency (to replace the CDT) posed no problems for Ottawa. Wrong was given authority to proceed, which he did when the CPC meeting resumed early in the new year. Nevertheless the joy that reigned in Ottawa was not unconstrained. CJ. Mackenzie thought that the politics of Canada's nuclear relationships were overblown and peripheral to the country's real interests in the sector. "In the afternoon I attended a meeting of the Advisory Panel on Atomic Energy. Mr Howe and Mr St Laurent were there, and we had an interesting discussion but again I feel that there is a terrific amount of paperwork, signals dispatches and consideration of questions for which we have no real interest."51 The Modus Vivendi, as the January 1948 agreement came to be called, finally gave effect to the intention that the leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada had expressed in November 1945 to revise the basis for their cooperation in the nuclear field. It also

74 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

effectively eliminated the 1943 American obligation toward the United Kingdom respecting prior consultation on the use of atomic weapons. The CPC was established as the primary body for dealing with atomic energy problems of common concern, and its composition was fixed at six representatives (three American, two British, and one Canadian). It was charged with the consideration of principles to govern raw materials allocation; general questions of cooperation; and supervision of the renamed CDT, the Combined Development Agency. The three countries undertook to make every legal effort to gain control of the uranium and thorium within their territories (and, in the case of the United Kingdom, everywhere else in the British Commonwealth). The desirability of exchanging information and experience was agreed in principle, though the actual commitment to do so was cast in very narrow terms: "They will therefore cooperate in respect of such areas as may from time to time be agreed upon by the CPC and insofar as this is permitted by the laws of the respective countries."52 The effort through the UN to develop an international control system was dealt with in the hushed tones appropriate to discussion of the terminally ill. "Policy with respect to international control of atomic energy remains that set forth in the three-nation agreed Declaration of November 15, 1945. Whenever a plan for the international control of atomic energy with appropriate safeguards which would ensure use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes only shall be agreed upon, and shall become fully effective, the relationship of these countries in atomic energy matters will have to be reconsidered in the light thereof."53 A week later St Laurent provided his cabinet colleagues with a barebones outline of Canada's new collaborative arrangements with the United States and the United Kingdom: "Full agreement had been reached for technical cooperation and the exchange of information, and for the allocation of supplies of essential materials to meet the requirements of the three national programmes. The Canadian representative (Mr Wrong) had adhered to these new arrangements at the final meeting of the Combined Policy Committee on January 7th, upon authorization given by the Prime Minister to the Secretary to the Cabinet (Mr Heeney). The Cabinet noted with approval the report submitted."54 A MIXED OUTLOOK

Much had transpired since those autumn days of 1945 when policymakers first began to give serious thought to the impact of the atom on the affairs of humanity. In Canada, the domestic atomic project was advancing very quickly. An operational NRX was consistently proving both its versatility and its power, opening up new horizons for all aspects of atomic research. The peaceful uses of the atom, almost

75 The International Option

forgotten in the concern over the military applications, were moving steadily toward reality. The program had shed its tripartite origins and was becoming increasingly Canadian as British and other expatriate scientists returned home and as Ottawa became the sole source of financial support. Uranium remained the preeminent strategic commodity, and Canadian supplies, while modest compared to those from the Belgian Congo, figured prominently in the strategic calculations of friend and foe alike. Moreover, prospects for additional finds in the vast Canadian Shield were strong. The war had given the country a flying start in a challenging new technology, pregnant with possibility for good and bad, and Canada had the will, the wealth, and the skills to take full advantage of it. Internationally, the picture was anything but reassuring. The brave and nobly intentioned quest for an international control system had gone nowhere and was increasingly dismissed as irrelevant. Three major weapons programs - the expansion of the American arsenal and the Soviet and British A-bomb projects - were well under way and unlikely to be reversed in any circumstances. A general East-West political settlement - virtually the only development that might have rescued the UNAEC - was becoming more improbable by the month as tensions between the Soviet Union and the Western democracies mounted. Canada's approach to nuclear issues reflected this reality. Despite its growing nuclear competence and sophistication and disappointment with the UNAEC process, Canada took no steps to build a weapon. The stance reflected the nature of the sole threat Canada might be said to face, a powerful - and popular- trend to scale back radically on defence expenditures, the country's de facto alliances with the United States and Britain, a desire to see an international control system achieved, and the absence, or at least control, of any latent great power aspirations. At the same time, despite the rhetoric expended on the nuclear threat, there was clearly no fundamental objection to the weapon as such. Canada was ready, even eager, to assist its allies with their programs, believing that in doing so the country contributed to its own and to a broader collective defence. Canada's military were increasingly aware of the implications of what was seen as a powerful new instrument of war and determined to stay abreast of developments. As the deadlock in the UNAEC dragged on and the international climate deteriorated, Canada would seek to improve its security through still closer nuclear ties with its larger partners. With virtually no-high level debate, in cabinet or in Parliament, the Canadian position on nuclear issues was increasingly coming to resemble the approach that Marcel Cadieux had advanced fourteen months earlier.

6 The Alliance Option They really had a little more reputation than a couple of cats can very well bear. T.S. Eliot, "Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer," in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

THE CANADIAN PROGRAM AND CONTEXT

The Modus Vivendi, the agreement discussed in the previous chapter, evidently provided an adequate basis for Canada's relations with its two nuclear partners. Looking back on its operation in September 1949 as its two-year term approached expiry, C.D. Howe offered the followin assessment: "With regard to the information which we have received under the present modus vivendi, Canada has no complaint. We believe that we have put the information that came our way to good use. Whil we could have used more information to advantage, perhaps some ben efit has been gained from the situation which has made it necessary for Canadian scientists to work out many problems for themselves."1 Demand for Canadian uranium remained brisk. Indeed, contracts with the United States - which depended heavily on Congolese and Canadian uranium during the period 1947-50 - were instrumental in financing the exploration activities that soon resulted in major new ore discoveries. The United States was crucial to the Canadian program for other reasons as well. Early in 1949 C.J. Mackenzie began to campaign for the construction of an eventual replacement for NRX. While the new reactor (eventually to be designated NRU, for National Research - Universal) was intended to have ten times the power and offer greater versatility for research than NRX, its potential as a plutonium producer was crucial to its future. After winning C.D. Howe's support for the project, Mackenzie briefed the advisory panel on his ideas.

77 The Alliance Option

Mackenzie thought the project could cost some $30 million to construct and another $20 million to operate over a five-year period. NRU, however, would be able to produce ten times the quantity of plutonium then manufactured at Chalk River. "[I]f we could count on selling the United States sixty kilograms of plutonium annually at the estimated present cost to them the investment might be a very attractive one ... it was certain that we could at present manufacture plutonium more economically than either the United States or the United Kingdom and could probably count on a continuing market in the United States, as the plutonium would always be inherently valuable, whether it was to be used for war or peace."2 Related to the foregoing was the scope that NRU offered for Canada to become a major supplier of plutonium for Anglo-American weapons programs were London ever to cede to American pressures not to locate plutonium production facilities in the British Isles. Anglo-Canadian cooperation as well appears to have settled into an effective working relationship. A considerable volume of correspondence from this period has been preserved among the papers of Dr David Keyes, who served as head of the Chalk River facilities, under the general direction of Cockcroft's British-born successor, Dr W.B. Lewis.3 The picture that emerges is predominantly one of easy and open scientific collaboration, often conducted informally between Canadian and British personnel, with little distinction being drawn between Canadian and British objectives. While Howe had complained sharply the previous year at the British tendency to treat Chalk River as their own weapons development facility, he appears to have come round to the view that Canada benefitted as well from exchanges with British scientific personnel. That said, it is beyond debate that the British weapons program benefitted enormously from the untrammeled access that UK scientists and engineers had to the Canadian program. Relations were sufficiently close to permit Clement Attlee to write in July to Louis St Laurent (who had succeeded Mackenzie King as prime minister in November 1948), encouraging Canada to proceed with NRU, inter alia because of its value as a reserve source of polonium, a material that the British weapons program would need in substantial and continuing quantities to make the weapons effective.4 Anglo-American relations, however, remained as tangled as ever. Britain's insistence on pursuing its own independent weapons program, American unease over the objective and constant security preoccupations, congressional constraints, and the legacy of misunderstanding conspired to limit effective cooperation except in areas where some quid pro quo existed. Something else may have conspired as well. Between January 1947 and August 1948 the British officer who

78 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

dealt with nuclear matters within the British Embassy in Washington and served as British secretary to the CPC - was none other than one Donald Maclean, who would eventually be revealed as a Soviet spy. During 1948 and early 1949 Washington and London clearly began to feel the need to shore up the foundations for their nuclear relations. The British interest in expanding their access to American weapons expertise was a constant of the period. In the United States, pressures on military budgets had grown following the Truman victory in the 1948 presidential election. In these new, straitened circumstances greater cooperation with close allies took on a new appeal.5 More immediately, some in Washington saw advantage in seeking a voice in the direction of the British program, the allocation and use of scarce uranium, and greater access to non-American scientific talent. By March 1949 the American National Security Council was at work on a policy initiative known as the us-UK-Canadian Policy Study, which was directed toward full and effective tripartite cooperation on all aspects of atomic energy, including weapons production.6 The Anglo-American relationship was being played out against a steadily darkening backdrop. In February 1948 the freely elected government of Czechoslovakia was overthrown by communists acting as proxies for the Soviet Union. Four months later Moscow initiated the Berlin blockade, an open repudiation of postwar arrangements and a direct challenge to the Western position in then-divided Germany. Increasingly, it seemed that tensions, like sorrows, came not as single spies but in battalions. One of the biggest was the Chinese. In the decades-long struggle between communists and nationalists, the fortunes of war had shifted decisively in favour of the communists. By the summer of 1949 the People's Liberation Army had defeated its nationalist opponents (despite the direct assistance extended by the United States) and the latter were in full flight to Taiwan. In October 1949 the People's Republic of China was proclaimed, and effective communist control was established over all of mainland China. If sceptics in Western capitals had previously questioned whether communism was an aggressive and expansionist ideology inimical to Western interests, its rise to power by force of arms in the world's most populous country appeared to offer a thoroughly convincing counterargument. In the United States the tripartite cooperation proposal of the National Security Council had run into strong opposition from the American defence secretary, who saw several liabilities and few advantages in a nuclear alliance with Britain, and from some influential members of Congress. While this opposition largely dissipated over the summer, the successful Soviet detonation of an atomic device in August abruptly ended the debate. Though long anticipated in

79 The Alliance Option

Western capitals, the political shock wave of the Soviet test was felt across Europe and North America. Once again the CPC would become the forum for intense discussion and negotiation of what Western response should be made to the no longer theoretical Soviet nuclear threat. Interestingly, the Soviet detonation clearly generated some second thoughts respecting Canadian efforts to secure an international control system and prompted a determination to participate energetically in the looming arms race. In mid-October Ottawa warned the delegation to die United Nations against taking any action that might erode Western nuclear superiority. "[W]e should proceed very cautiously in initiating any proposal which could conceivably have the effect of divesting die North Atlantic community of its major strategic asset which so far has held the balance against vasdy superior Soviet forces in being."7 A major additional argument for caution, Ottawa continued, was that "the Government is now actively considering including die British and ourselves in a full partnership on atomic weapons. This is clearly of the utmost importance in relation to anything which may be initiated in the Assembly along the lines indicated."8 AGREEMENT IN PRINCIPLE

Within weeks of the successful Soviet test die Americans had proposed establishing a subcommittee within die CPC to examine strategic and military questions.9 Two rounds of high-level meetings took place in Washington between late September and early December. The establishment of a fully integrated tripartite weapons program quickly won support. After the initial round Hume Wrong (in Washington) set out what appeared to him to be the major policy issues before the Canadian government. Was Canada prepared to "accord the United States primary responsibility for weapons production" and to agree that urgent priority be given by all three countries "to the production of atomic weapons and fissionable material as quickly as possible"?10 Did American claims to at least 90 percent of the uranium expected to become available over the next five years pose any problems for Canada? Was Ottawa ready "to permit storage in Canada of atomic weapons owned by the United Kingdom" and to cooperate in "the provision, equipment and defence of bases for the launching of atomic weapons"?11 What form should a new tripartite agreement take? While much would depend on how the American administration dealt with the problems created by the McMahon Act, relations with those who had just signed on to the new North Atlantic Treaty also had to be considered. In an intriguing application of the functional idea, Wrong argued that a new agreement should be presented as a collective con-

8o Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

tribution by the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada "to the common security of the North Atlantic nations and of the Western world."12 The advisory panel met on several occasions to consider what direction should be given to the Canadian participants in the tripartite talks, the next round of which was expected to take place in late November. On 9 November the panel met, with the prime minister in the chair, to formulate the Canadian position. The issues before it were those that Hume Wrong had set out in his messages from Washington. As a point of departure, " The Prime Minister said that he assumed we were prepared to accept the principle that the United States should have primary responsibility for weapons' production and that as great a stockpile of bombs and fissionable material as possible should be achieved by the combined efforts of the three countries. This was agreed, [after u.s.-UK disagreement on the possible expansion of UK production facilities was noted and a claim staked out for the maintenance and expansion of the Canadian reactor program]."13 On the supply of raw materials, the panel had no difficulty in acceding to the American claim to the lion's share of new resources, as whatever contribution Canada made toward it would come only after the requirements of current and planned Chalk River reactors had been met. Respecting exchanges of scientific and technical information, that longstanding stumbling block in u.s.-UK relations, Canada had no particular need for information on weapons production and development and therefore no need for its scientists to be integrated into British or American weapons programs. CJ. Mackenzie and O.M. Solandt (who had begun to participate in advisory panel meetings shortly after his appointment as chairman of the DRB in 1947) stressed, however, the Canadian interest in access to basic information and intelligence, as well as the military characteristics of the latest weapons for the country's own military and civil defence planning. The storage of British weapons in Canada, an idea that bobbed to the surface regularly in the transatlantic exchanges, clearly held little appeal. Canada might be prepared to accede if tripartite solidarity so required, but clearly preferred not to be asked. "The Prime Minister summed up the discussion by saying that we did not want to make bombs, nor to have tide to them, nor to use them. The bombs will be owned by the u.s. and the UK; we should let them make the plans to use the bombs in accordance with strategic concepts agreed under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; if the u.s. and the U.K. Governments found it desirable to store some bombs in Canada, they could ask us to do so and an agreement might be worked out, but it would be better not to have Canada designated, in the agreement to be negotiated now

81 The Alliance Option

between the three countries, as a custodian of bombs for the other two governments."14 St Laurent was particularly concerned at the possible use of Canadian facilities for offensive purposes and was anxious to avoid describing Canadian airfields as "launch sites." The senior air force officer present assured him that the Americans anticipated no requirement for offensive bases in Canada but did see a possible need for emergency landing facilities on atomic bomber routes.15 The relationships of the proposed tripartite nuclear partnership to NATO, and to the UN were flagged as matters that would eventually have to be addressed as well. The French were seen as requiring particularly careful handling, given tiieir continuing concerns that Western strategy, if left to London and Washington alone, would downplay the interests of the Western European continental countries. Respecting the Western alliance, Arnold Heeney expanded on Hume Wrong's functional approach by suggesting that the best tack might be to explain "to our Treaty partners that what we were undertaking was a specialized function for the most efficient production of the most potent strategic weapon of the allies."16 As to a possible requirement to register a new agreement with the United Nations, Norman Robertson noted that much would depend on how the u.s. administration dealt with Congress. If the Americans found it necessary to refer publicly to a formal agreement, "we might very well have to register with the United Nations some general anodyne form of agreement to which the secret operative clauses could be related but not discussed publicly."17 Formal and informal exchanges continued through the autumn, steadily narrowing the differences between the three governments. Canada, for one, appears to have been pleased with the progress made. As Arnold Heeney reported on 13 December to Lester Pearson, then St Laurent's secretary of state for external affairs: " [T] he Prime Minister is satisfied with the course of the Washington discussions. The bargaining between the United Kingdom and the United States has been hard; our position throughout has been one of interested neutrality, as we do not make bombs and do not need to know how they are made. Our major interest is to see that the negotiations do not break down, as we stand to gain a great deal from any sort of agreement within the framework of the discussions which have been proceeding."18 On the final day of the year Wrong reported from Washington that London had produced a paper that appeared to address the major outstanding issues. He had reviewed the text informally with the British ambassador and Dean Acheson, the American secretary of state, to determine whether it provided a reasonable basis for further

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negotiations. All three appeared to be confident that it did; Acheson expressed the hope that it would be possible within a short period "to get the general outlines fixed between the three Governments before the experts are summoned again from London and Ottawa to study the details."19 AND A P R A C T I C A L D I S A G R E E M E N T

On 2 February 1950 Klaus Fuchs, a naturalized British subject, was arrested in Britain on charges of spying for the Soviet Union. Fuchs, who had been active in British atomic research since 1941, had been a member of the British contingent of scientists who worked on the American weapons program between 1943 and 1946. He had then returned to the United Kingdom to take on a senior position - head of the theoretical physics division - at Harwell, Britain's newly established nuclear research facility. During his interrogation Fuchs confessed that he had passed information to the Soviets over the entire nine-year span of his active career. In the lengthy shadow cast by the Soviet atomic explosion he appeared to many to be the most damaging Soviet agent ever detected.20 Prospects for full Anglo-American cooperation in the nuclear field once again vanished. (The defection the following September of another naturalized British subject, Bruno Pontecorvo, who had evaded detection in the aftermath of the Gouzenko revelations, doubtless did little to ease American concerns over British security practices.) In the fall of 1949 a full-fledged nuclear alliance between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada had appeared entirely feasible and readily attainable. Ottawa had actively supported this attempt to provide for "the most efficient production of the most potent strategic weapon" and, on conditions that would have been easily satisfied, doubtless would have participated fully in it. The initiative collapsed, not from any lack of support by the Canadians, but because of an odd, extraneous event that brought to the fore all the latent tensions in the Anglo-American nuclear relationship.21

7 The Bilateral Option And we're off at last for the northern part Of the Northern Hemisphere! T.S. Eliot, "Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat," in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

ONCE AND FUTURE ALLIES

The Americans would shortly discover through the Rosenberg affair that despite their very extensive security apparatus, American atomic programs had been no more immune to the attentions of Soviet intelligence agencies than the programs of their allies. The Fuchs case, however - because of the length of time that Fuchs was active, the unparalleled access he had had on both sides of the Adantic, and his grasp of the scientific intricacies of many phases of Anglo-American research - was seen as a particularly grave betrayal. The outbreak of di Korean war in June 1950 encouraged some resumption of AngloAmerican dialogue on nuclear matters, but by the autumn of the year it was clear dial the opportunity for a fully integrated tripartite weapons program had come and gone. Once the United States became seriously engaged in Korea, the demands of the war quickly put paid to domestic efforts to constrain military spending. Moreover, as the heavy investments the United States had made in weapons production from approximately 1947 onwards began to yield results, u.s. interest in an integrated program diminished. The American stockpile had increased to the point where u.s. military planners were beginning to think in terms of the potential tactical, as distinct from the strategic, uses of atomic weapons. In addition, as part of the American response to the Soviet atomic test, the Truman administration had approved the development of a thermonuclear device. Work on the H-bomb - which stood in approximately the same relationship to the atomic bomb as

84 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

the latter did to the largest conventional ordnance of World War II was progressing rapidly. Across the Atlantic the British pressed on with their independent development of a weapon. The UK effort had struck some in Washington and in Ottawa as a misallocation of scarce resources. During the 1949 negotiations the United States had made clear its views that allied scientific expertise would be far more profitably devoted to leading-edge problems (than to matters that the United States had already solved) and that it would, on certain terms, supply up to twenty u.s. made bombs to the United Kingdom for its own independent use. Therein lay the core of the "bombs for brains" deal, which at one point was on the table. For his part CJ. Mackenzie was frequently critical of Britain's determination to go its own way in the absence of any very persuasive reason to do so. As he had put it to an advisory panel meeting the previous year in advancing the case for the NRU reactor: "he had always found it difficult to understand the insistence of the United Kingdom authorities on having production piles located in Great Britain; apart from the considerations of prestige, he saw no valid economic reason, as present production reactors are not important power units [an acknowledged long-term British interest] and reactors producing on the North American continent could supply the United Kingdom with fissionable materials that might be required for any future power or military development programme."1 That particular window however had been closed. British doggedness was in due course rewarded. In October 1952, a British test device was detonated in the Monte Bello islands off the Australian coast, thereby establishing the United Kingdom as the world's third nuclear weapons state. Such political capital as accrued from this display of technological prowess was constrained, however, by the explosion of the world's first thermonuclear device, by the United States at Eniwetok atoll, one month later. Closer to home, the Canadian atomic energy program continued to display its dualism like a birthmark. The specific priorities that Canadian policymakers (notably Mackenzie and Howe) set for the program clearly lay in research and in the development of the peaceful uses of the atom. These were steadily approaching the realm of the feasible in several advanced countries, and the Canadian program was second to none in pressing them forward. It enjoyed broadly based political support in the endeavour. Late in 1949, after considerable prodding by opposition members of parliament, the government had agreed to an all-party special parliamentary committee on atomic energy. While its mandate was carefully circumscribed, the committee constituted, nonetheless, the first

85 The Bilateral Option

detailed legislative review of nuclear matters since the inception of the Canadian program. In expressing the government's willingness to see the committee struck, C.D. Howe laid heavy emphasis on the growing range of peaceful uses that were being found for atomic energy and commended them to the attention of committee members. A visit to Chalk River was organized, during the course of which the parliamentarians were introduced into the still exotic world of atomic research. There is no evidence of any major policy discussions taking place on the military or civilian uses of atomic energy. Committee members, however, were given a tour of the facilities and were lectured on radioactivity, isotopes, the actual and potential industrial uses of the atom, and related matters. David Keyes, the de facto host, described the program in his bimonthly internal progress report for October-November 1949 and concluded that the visit had been a success for all concerned.2 The parliamentarians emphatically agreed. Their committee duly reported back to the House of Commons on 8 December 1949. Resolutely skirting any reference to military applications and warmly endorsing the Chalk River project and the broader Canadian program, the report noted: "For Canada to continue in the forefront in this field, it will be necessary to press forward the work with vigour. Your Committee recommends the expansion and development of the project as required from time to time, and further recommends that the government undertake the expansion of the present facilities by the construction of an additional reactor [Mackenzie's cherished NRU] and such research equipment as may be required."3 Canada, however, also participated actively in the military applications of the atom, notably through its position as a supplier of uranium and heavy water to the United States, the role of Chalk River in addressing a range of scientific issues arising from the military programs of its allies, and the very substantial assistance Canadians provided to Britain in the development of its weapon. Washington clearly attached importance to the Canadian military contribution, as the following episode reveals. In the spring of 1950 the American members of the CPC met to consider a number of items with implications for the tripartite nuclear relationship. Among them were matters bearing on the American Hbomb development program. Some members questioned whether a series of experiments scheduled to be carried out using the NRX reactor at Chalk River could go ahead; would they not provide the Canadians with militarily sensitive information, in contravention of American domestic law? The acting chairman of the u.s. Atomic Energy Commission acknowledged that a risk might well exist. He urged, however,

86 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

that the experiments not be blocked: "the information in question might be considered borderline, but... in view of the immense advantages to be gained from the proposed irradiations the Commission considered that the project should go forward."4 While Canadian government spokesmen regularly sought to stress the civilian and downplay the military dimension, the reality was clear to anyone who cared to look closely. C.D. Howe had himself told the Commons that the origins of Canadian expertise lay in die wartime decision "to build a pilot project for the production of plutonium by a heavy water reactor at Chalk River."5 Shortly before the outbreak of the Korean War, Dr Solandt described Canadian policy, in rather tart terms, from his perspective: "Since the War, the Government has maintained that this [the Chalk River] Establishment was working solely for peaceful purposes, and there was, therefore, little or no contact between Chalk River and DRB or the Armed Forces. This policy has now been altered and such contact is being encouraged. In spite of Canadian Government policy, there is no question that other friendly countries have always regarded the Chalk River Project as a major Canadian contribution to defence."6 In actual fact, Solandt overstated the determination of Canadian policymakers to accentuate the positive. The military dimension of the program was routinely - if unenthusiastically - acknowledged as an e sential component of Canada's defence effort. The Report of the National Research Council of 1950-51, in explaining that defence-related research had risen sharply because of recent global tensions, put it in the following terms: "in addition to the atomic energy project, which has always had a dual character, the divisions of electrical engineering [etc.] have turned almost exclusively to war work."7 Related to the foregoing - perhaps merely an extension of it - is the role that funding played in shaping the Canadian program. The United States and Britain, for quite different reasons, had an overarching view of their national programs. Each was determined to have a weapon, and each was prepared to make whatever sacrifice was required to achieve its objective. The Americans had the clearest and strongest motivation to acquire the weapon, given the perceived stakes in World War II and the threat of a Nazi bomb. There is something that almost defies explanation, however, in a much-depleted postwar Britain - with its economy in ruins, most of the tasks of reconstruction still before it, surviving in part on emergency American financial assistance - deciding in the bitter winter of 1946-47 that among its chief priorities was the development of an independent nuclear arsenal. In Canada such ambitions, or obsessions - if they existed - were never unleashed. It was entirely in keeping with established Canadian practice that Mackenzie, convinced

87 The Bilateral Option

for a host of reasons that a successor for NRX needed to be built, should look first to place it on a firm financial foundation. Canada wanted to participate in all facets of the expanding nuclear world; Canada also wanted the program to pay its own way. By the fall of 1950 Mackenzie had secured agreement in principle from the American Atomic Energy Commission to purchase all the plutonium that Chalk River could produce. It is worth noting that plutonium at the time commanded a king's ransom - from the very select few to whom it could be sold. In an era when gold was worth $35 an ounce, the Americans were prepared to pay about $5,000 (140 times as much) for an equivalent quantity of plutonium. In September, Howe wrote to his colleague D.C. Abbott, the finance minister, seeking his support for the NRU project, stressing that the planned plutonium sales "would allow the Government to amortize past expenditures as well as future expenditures over the same [lo-year] period."8 Abbott responded in due course that he was prepared to support the project before cabinet. He also suggested that the project appeared "to be directed primarily to the production of plutonium for military purposes and any other purposes for which the United States would be using it, rather than for research, and I assume that we can regard our expenditures on this project as in the nature of defence expenditures."9 In November Ottawa learned that the United States was again considering reviving the tripartite talks, though for purposes substantially more limited than an integrated weapons program. The advisory panel was told that if, as seemed likely, talks were scheduled for early in 1951, the principal issues on which the government would need to clarify its thinking were the possibility of establishing a joint atomic proving ground in Canada and "of storing bombs in Canada, either for our own use or for the use of the u.s.A.F." 10 The military and scientific members of the panel, notably Solandt and Mackenzie, were attracted to the idea of a joint test facility on the grounds that it could prove valuable for Canadian civil defence, help demystify popular perceptions of atomic weapons as they increasingly became ordinary weapons of war, and reinforce Canada's position within the CPC. The more political participants, however, firmly disagreed. Robertson, as chairman, concluded that the government probably would not be prepared to see such a facility established, although, failing all other options, a joint UK-u.s. approach might secure reluctant acceptance. "We should not, however, initiate any programme or proposal for the establishment of an atomic proving ground in Canada."11 A possible offer to Canada of American nuclear weapons for its own use met with a curiously muted response: "A5 regards the possibility of bombs being stored in Canada, Dr Solandt reported that Mr Arneson had

88 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

thrown out a suggestion which he might or might not have meant to be taken seriously, that the Canadian Government might wish to have bombs stored in Canada for its own use."12 The suggestion was not explored in any depth. Arnold Heeney noted that discussions were already under way with the Americans respecting military facilities at Goose Bay. Robertson indicated that he "did not know whether this problem would be approached more easily on the basis of our North Atlantic partnership, in which the United States had already been given the strategic air role, or as a joint exercise in Canada-u.s. cooperation."13 While no one seems to have recoiled in shock and horror at the notion of nuclear weapons under full Canadian control, neither was there any discernible desire to follow up on the opening. THE INTERNATIONAL SCENE

The nuclear story was unfolding against the grimmest backdrop to face the Western democracies since the end of World War II. In late November the newly victorious communist government in China had intervened massively in Korea and had dealt the United Nations forces (largely American and South Korean) a stunning defeat. It seemed to many that the outbreak of World War III was at hand, in the least advantageous circumstances imaginable. In Ottawa, as no doubt in other Western capitals, a great deal of time and attention was devoted to what was styled, in one collection of policy papers submitted to Lester Pearson, as "The International Crisis Arising out of the Defeat of the U.N. Forces in Korea." The tenor of the times is well reflected in a memo of 9 December prepared within External Affairs by Escott Reid, then deputy under-secretary. Reid argued that since 1947 the Western democracies had been "subjected to four major shocks or disasters." In each case the Western response had been too little or too late. "The defeat in Korea is the fifth major shock or disaster in this series. If the response to the challenge of this disaster is likewise inadequate, the result may be defeat in a third world war."14 The Chinese southward advance was eventually halted and the military situation stabilized, though not until heavy casualties had been sustained on both sides. As the winter of 1950-51 set in, however, the news from the distant battlefields of Korea was as sombre as the brief December days. The early phase of the Korean War produced a major issue that cast into sharp relief one aspect of the Canadian approach toward nuclear weapons. On 30 November, as the magnitude of the Chinese victory was becoming apparent, u.s. president Harry Truman was led to speculate in public on the possible use of the atomic bomb in Korea. In

89 The Bilateral Option

retrospect it appears that Truman's statement was an off-the-cuff response to a journalist's question rather than a serious statement of American policy. It generated great unease in many capitals, however, including Ottawa and London. Britain's Clement Attlee made a flying visit to Washington and secured from Truman what he took to be an American assurance of advance consultations (steadfastly rejected subsequently by American officials) respecting the possible use of nuclear weapons. Ottawa's response was shaped personally by Lester Pearson, and in terms entirely consistent with the views he had expressed at the Washington tripartite meeting five years earlier. On 4 December Pearson instructed Hume Wrong, in Washington, to set out formally to the American government Canada's views on the possible use of the atomic bomb in Korea. After some fine-tuning of Ottawa's initial text, a document was duly presented to the State Department. The text is interesting because it demonstrates the continuity of a strand of Canadian thinking - often represented by Pearson but by no means limited to him - which had been present from the beginning; it also sets out the credentials on which Canada asserted its claim to be heard. Thus, Pearson argued that regardless of the military view that the atomic bomb "is just another weapon," in the minds of ordinary people around the world it had acquired immensely more political significance and the possibility of its use had generated great anxiety. Were the bomb to be employed - or even threatened - the po litical and psychological consequences would be "incalculably great." Bombing Chinese cities might change the course of the war, "but at the risk of destroying the cohesion and unity of purpose of the Atlantic community ... [and weakening] the links that remain between the Western world and the peoples of the East."15 The deterrent value of the bomb - universally regarded as the ultimate weapon - depended in some measure on its not being used, particularly for tactical purposes. "Once it has been used tactically, however, much of its force as a deterrent may disappear, unless its use for this purpose has proven overwhelmingly successful."16 Canadians would expect their government to make its views known. Canada had been a partner from the outset in the tripartite cooperation initiated with the Quebec Agreement; Mackenzie King had signed, with Truman and Attlee, the Washington declaration; through its membership in the CPC, its provision of raw materials and scientific knowledge "Canada has made a direct contribution to building up the atomic stockpile."17 While Canada asserted no binding right to prior consultation, the 1948 Modus Vivendi having eliminated the obligation contained in the Quebec Agreement, Canada too would be affected by the use of the bomb. The Chinese intervention could lead to a third world war. Given this context, and

go Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

the presence of American troops on the ground, the United States was entitled to consider all available military options. "But, before a decision of such immense and awful consequence, for all of us, is taken, there should be consultation among the Governments principally concerned."18 On 5 December Pearson made most of these same points publicly in a radio broadcast, arguing that the A-bomb was seen by all as the ultimate weapon and should be treated accordingly. The American response to the Canadian initiative was curiously reminiscent of Mackenzie King's famous statement on military conscription, in that it consisted of consultation if possible, but possibly not consultation. The State Department's Arneson noted, reasonably enough, that the contingencies in which atomic weapons might be used varied substantially. In some, such as a direct attack on the United States or on a NATO ally, the decision would be taken unilaterally by Washington or through NATO consultative processes. In others, however, such as an attack on a non-NATO member or one in which only Soviet satellite forces were employed, a decision to use or to forego atomic weapons would, he thought, follow from the decision by the United States and its allies either to go to war or to acquiesce in the presumed aggression. DIALOGUES AND SOLILOQUIES

Despite sporadic signs of interest in recommencing tripartite discussions, the CPC met rarely, if at all, during 1951. The Fuchs episode continued to exercise some influence. Mid-way through the year a senior American official visiting Ottawa would cite the following as his explanation for the failure of the discussions of 1949-50: the United States had tried to drive too tough a bargain with the British; the congressional oversight body was not prepared to countenance as broad an exemption from the McMahon Act as would have been desirable; and the Fuchs episode had made it "politically impossible to propose giving more atomic information to the U.K. at that time."19 High-level exchanges continued, however, though in a surprising new forum. The concerns that Britain and Canada had expressed over the possible use of nuclear weapons in Korea stimulated efforts in all three capitals to come to some type of understanding on the subject. On Attlee's departure from Washington the previous December, Truman had publicly expressed the hope that international conditions would never require use of the atomic bomb, and he had expressed his desire to "keep the Prime Minister at all times informed of developments which might bring about a change in the situation." The Americans steadfastly refused to interpret this language as a commitment to prior

gi

The Bilateral Option

consultation respecting any use of the weapon. Indeed, they maintained that the president could not make such a commitment without violating domestic legislation. Given British and Canadian concerns, however, several months later they did offer to undertake separate, frequent, high-level consultations with both countries on global situations that might give rise to the use of the bomb. The offer to Canada was not unrelated to a u.s. desire to obtain the greatest possible freedom of action respecting use by the u.s. Strategic Air Command (SAC) of bases in Newfoundland. Ottawa had grown increasingly uneasy with SAC interest in Newfoundland (stimulated perhaps by evidence that the SAC was attempting to place its entire role in Canada on a service-to-service basis, effectively excluding the Canadian cabinet from any real say in how and in what circumstances the bases might be used). In April, Hume Wrong was instructed to inform the Americans that although serviceto-service arrangements might suffice for some routine aspects of u. s. operations, "for any activity which involved the movement, storage or use of fissionable components or the nuclear core of atomic weapons, it was our view that the Canadian Government should be consulted in each case at the highest political level, and that the channel should be civil rather than military. Arrangements would have to be made to permit such consultation to take place at very short notice in the event of an emergency. If the u.s. authorities wished to proceed widi negotiations for a canopy agreement, it was our view that the terms of the agreement should be placed squarely within the framework of the North Atlantic Treaty."20 Nor were these concerns overstated. In making the above points to the State Department, Wrong learned that SAC plans for the Newfoundland bases were far broader than the simple transit and diversion roles that had earlier been suggested via Canadian air force channels. (Indeed, they resembled the roles that the Americans had first advanced years earlier, in the bilateral defence discussions of 1946.) If, in an emergency, die United States had not had time to deploy the nuclear components of its weapons to bases closer to the Soviet Union, it "would wish to use Goose Bay as the base from which initial strikes against the enemy would take place."21 Moreover, even if the nuclear cores had been deployed "Goose Bay would be regarded as an important staging area in the movement of aircraft of the Strategic Air Command to and from more advanced bases."22 Suddenly, broad theoretical concerns over the use of the bomb had come a great deal closer to home. Wrong was duly authorized to take up the American offer of global consultations on the clear understanding that they were not to serve as

9 2 Canada' s Early Nuclear Policy

a surrogate for consultations at the highest political level on " (a) possible strikes from bases in Canada; (b) storage of fissionable components on Canadian territory; (c) overflight of Canadian territory by planes carrying fissionable components."23 Ottawa recognized that these conditions might not be met in an emergency: "it has been agreed," following consultation between the prime minister, the defence minister and Pearson as secretary of state for external affairs, "that we would not object to immediate retaliation by the u.s. Strategic Air Command with all available means and from all available bases, in the event of a major outright Soviet attack against continental North America. In these circumstances, we would not insist on prior consultation, but would, of course, wish to have as much prior notification as possible."24 As Ottawa grappled with what real influence it could hope to exercise over u.s. military planning should Armageddon occur, the American offer to consult on global conditions held some attraction as a vehicle to ensure that Canadian views were at least registered in the senior reaches of the American administration. The argument ran (shades of the 1947 Cadieux memo) that if general hostilities occurred, Canada would be involved from the outset, regardless of the claims of national sovereignty and the proprieties of intergovernmental consultation. Rather than simply sitting back and repeating Canada's undoubted legal right to prohibit the launch of American atomic strikes from Canadian bases, why not exercise such influence as Canada possessed with die United States before any fateful decisions were taken - provided such a strategy did not erode the fundamentals of the Canadian position. On one major concern, Canada was reassured even before the exchanges were organized. By the spring of 1951 the tide of war in Korea had turned; the UN forces had taken the initiative from the Chinese and were inflicting very heavy casualties on them. Prospects of a global war had receded; as well, the Soviets showed no disposition to intervene in force on behalf of their Chinese and North Korean ideological allies. With the situation less desperate and its major allies still concerned over possible use of the A-bomb in Korea, the United States backed away from the notion that the weapon could have a tactical use. Pearson's view that the bomb was the ultimate weapon appears to have made some headway, at least temporarily. As a report on a visit to Ottawa by a senior State Department official put it: "New Orientation of u.s. Thinking ... the most significant feature of what Mr Arneson had said was the revelation that in Washington it was now assumed that (a) the only prospect of a major war is in the occurrence of open hostili-

93 The Bilateral Option

ties between the u.s. and the ussR,(b) such hostilities would inevitably mean a major war, and (c) in the event of such a war the atomic bomb would be used, but only in such an event."25 The duration of the high-level consultative exercise was brief. By autumn Wrong was expressing his disappointment at the rapid decline in American interest in such exchanges. One session, however, deserves attention for the insight it offers into what Canadian policymakers then saw as the major international issues associated with nuclear weapons, and for the wider range of nonnuclear matters that dominated the international agenda of 1951. In June, Lester Pearson led a small but high-powered team of his officials to meet with his American opposite number, Dean Acheson, and a number of his senior advisors. The first order of business was the nature of the exchanges and the continuing SAC interest in facilities in Canada. There was no substantive discussion, but a procedural minute was agreed, though not signed, that provided for dialogue on both subjects without prejudice to the positions of either country. Thus, the minute stipulated that frequent consultations would take place in Washington between the Canadian ambassador and the u.s. secretary of state (and others as appropriate) to exchange views on international developments that could lead to the use of nuclear weapons. On the second topic, American requests "for permission to make use of facilities in Canadian territory for the deployment of atomic weapons (both without and with their nuclear components) and for the conduct of operations involving the use of such weapons, or to overfly Canadian territory with such weapons" were to be made, and answered, through diplomatic channels. With those items, if not dealt with, at least shelved, the Canadians took the opportunity to air their concerns. One was the growing discrepancy between the de facto dependence of the Western alliance on nuclear weapons to counter Soviet superiority in conventional arms and the by now ritualized references at the United Nations to continuing Western commitment to the international control of nuclear weapons as embodied in the UNAEC proposals of 1948. Were the Americans concerned at the apparent inconsistency? "No," was the response. Paul Nitze replied that were the Soviets ever to accept an international control system, it would produce such a relaxation in tensions that the international climate would be transformed and a broad range of other disarmament measures would become possible. Acheson noted that it had been agreed in the UN the previous year that nuclear and nonnuclear disarmament had to be dealt with in the same forum. "Mr Pearson, nevertheless, thought that no opportunity should be lost of convincing public opinion ... that the United States

94 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

and its allies were sincere in advocating international control of atomic energy. Mr Acheson and his officials agreed - although perhaps somewhat perfunctorily."26 Hume Wrong then noted that the u.s. view of the international situation paid much attention to the possibility of provocative acts by the Soviet Union but ignored Western acts that might seem aggressive in Soviet eyes. The signature of the North Atlantic Treaty (or, as Pearson observed, the construction of u.s. air bases in Turkey) might have appeared provocative from Moscow's perspective. Could this not lead to a major miscalculation? Both sides readily agreed that it could. While the West should take whatever steps it felt were necessary, they should be carried out in as unprovocative a manner as possible. Pearson then dealt with the unease in Canada over what appeared to be growing American public support for a preemptive war against the USSR. It appeared to Canadians that opinion in the United States was hardening in the direction of the inevitability of war with the Soviet Union. There seemed to be a growing feeling that we were aiming to win a war not to prevent one. Mr Acheson, somewhat surprisingly, agreed that those who had formed this opinion of the state of mind of the United States "had every reason for their impression" ... He criticised with some vehemence the unholy alliance between some radio commentators, a number of newspapers, and some members of Congress ... [The American people, however, were far more sensible.] "Those in other countries who think the United States wants war," he repeated, "may have strong reasons for that impression; but that impression is mistaken." As he relapsed into imperturbability, he left the impression that he could not help but think of himself as fighting the powers of darkness in his own country.27

Discussion then turned to a consideration of actions that might precipitate a general war and the circumstances in which atomic weapons would be used. Several hypothetical situations were discussed, in terms that appeared to envisage the A-bomb as a retaliatory weapon of last resort. "In a general war with the Soviet Union, retaliatory action would include attacks with atomic weapons, it was agreed." The Canadians asked whether the United States28 was prepared to foreclose on their use against China and the USSR'S European satellites. The Americans responded that they would hope to avoid their use in any circumstances but much would depend on the individual case. As Acheson summarized the American position, "whereas atomic weapons would be used in a general war against the Soviet Union, they would not be used in a war against any of the satellites, except under very special circumstances."29 The balance of the session was devoted to a discussion

95 The Bilateral Option

of the possibility of detaching the Chinese Communists from the Soviet Union; Indo-China and Formosa; the advantages and disadvantages of formally warning the Soviet Union against acting aggressively; the war in Korea; and the possibility of negotiating a new master defence agreement between Canada and the United States. While the unique role in nuclear affairs that Canada had carved out for itself did not translate into a clear share in the decision-making process, it was certainly adequate to ensure that Canada's voice would be heard in Washington. Canadian uranium was a factor of growing importance in the calculations of American policymakers. In April 1951 an attractive new price schedule was agreed between the u.s. Atomic Energy Commission and Eldorado. Under the scheme the AEG extended to 1960 its 1950 purchase guarantee of all available Canadian uranium, up to a maximum of 8,000 tons, at a price intended to encourage prospecting activity in both the United States and Canada. If the commercial returns of bilateral cooperation with the United States were growing, however, there were other prices to be paid. As the British weapons program advanced toward a full-blown test, the United Kingdom sought to borrow five kilograms of plutonium from Canada on the understanding that it would be replaced from stocks of British plutonium expected to become available in 1953. Ottawa was disposed to supply the material. The Americans quickly intervened to make clear, not unreasonably, that the contract CJ. Mackenzie had recently negotiated gave them first call on all Chalk River plutonium not required by the Canadian research program. A compromise solution was eventually found under which Canada supplied a reduced quantity of plutonium to the United Kingdom. The episode demonstrates, however, the extent to which Canada's freedom of action respecting its other major nuclear partner was constrained, as well, perhaps, as the limits of Britain's ability to pursue its independent nuclear option.

8 The Plowshares Option So she's formed, from that lot of disorderly louts, A troop of well-disciplined helpful boy-scouts. T.S. Eliot, "The Old Gumbie Cat," in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

The late 19405 and early 19505 were a period of very substantial progress in developing the peaceful uses of the atom. While the military applications would continue to pose questions of unprecedented complexity in the conduct of relations among states, the nonmilitary uses were coming to play an increasingly important role in the Canadian approach to the entire nuclear sector. Accordingly, we need now to undertake a brief excursion into the area and explore how the civilian uses of atomic energy were beginning to affect the larger world beyond the policymaker's door. The peaceful applications are best considered under three subheadings: radioisotopic applications, research, and electrical power generation. Although there is some overlap inherent in this categorization, it best reflects the historical pattern of developments within the Canadian atomic energy program and is therefore a convenient means of orienting the discussion. RADIOISOTOPES

The reader who has had the tenacity to persist to this point will recall that the first artificial radioisotopes were created by Irene Joliot-Curie and her colleagues in France in the mid-thirties. Just as medical practitioners had been quick to find applications for Roentgen's curious x-rays well before they were understood in any depdi, scientists realized that artificial radioisotopes represented a marvelous new addition to the instruments at humanity's disposal to understand - and manipu-

97 The Plowshares Option

late - the physical world. CJ. Mackenzie once described the radioisotope as the greatest analytical discovery since the invention of the microscope. In an address in 1949 he illustrated just how radically the frontiers of investigation could be extended: "By methods of modern micro-chemistry amounts of material as small as one millionth of a gram can be detected. By use of radioactive tracer techniques amounts in the order of a billionth of a billionth of a gram have been detected."1 This represented a shift outward of twelve orders of magnitude (from lo""6 to io~ l8 ). Two everyday examples may suffice to illustrate how great was the revolution underway. From my residence on any given day I can pick out the graceful old clock tower that adorns the campus of Dalhousie University. The distance is approximately two kilometres. Were I to awake one morning with that two-kilometre range magically increased by twelve powers of ten, I would be able to see in the same detail beyond the outermost limits of the solar system, far into the space beyond Pluto's cold and lonely orbit. Again, a work table large enough to accommodate a computer, some paper, and a few books, might measure one square metre. Were the area of the table to be increased by twelve orders of magnitude, it would cover the entire province of Ontario. For millennia humanity had gone about its daily preoccupations taking advantage of such fundamental phenomena as friction or lubrication with no real knowledge of how they operated at the molecular level. Now there was a means of finding out. Quite suddenly, those subde and labyrinthine paths of nature's secrets that researchers previously could explore only by stealth and indirection were to be opened to the light of day. Science would never be the same; from determining the age of a fossil find through carbon-14 measurement to calculating the uptake of nutrients by living creatures, radioisotopes vastly expanded the capacity of researchers to probe the physical world. Nor was it only researchers who would benefit from the new microscope. Industrial applications grew as quickly. In virtually every industrial process where precision mattered, radioisotopes could find an application. World War II had been fought in an era when "precision engineering" meant the capacity to mill components to within one ten-thousandth of an inch. By 1950 accuracies to within one-millionth of an inch were on the horizon, if they had not already arrived. And the process had only just begun. As Wilfred Eggleston has noted, contrasting industry and medicine of the preisotope age with what would follow, "The techniques worked, and there were current theories as to why they worked, but basically little or nodiing was known of the exact mechanisms."2 Quality control would be vastly enhanced. From determining the optimal thickness of newsprint, to identifying feedstocks in

98 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

industrial processes, to assessing the quality of pipeline welds, radioisotopes quickly found a host of practical industrial applications. The most dramatic of the isotopic applications, however, related to human health. As early as 1945 a British scientist, after spending a year with the Anglo-Canadian atomic team in Montreal, anticipated three major areas where radioisotopes could be harnessed for medical purposes: as tracers to illuminate metabolic processes and the chemical interactions of therapeutic substances; as sources for radiotherapy; and as transporters of curative substances to selected diseased cells and tissues whose tendency to accumulate given elements was known. Two of the three in due course would become standard weapons in medicine's armamentarium. The NRX reactor quickly established itself, soon after becoming operational in 1947, as a superior source of radioisotopes. So successful was this aspect of its operations that the National Research Council convened a seminar in December 1948 on the industrial uses of isotopes to inform Canadian industry of the vistas opening up in this area. Canadian universities were already well aware of this important new tool. Among the earliest recipients of Chalk River isotopes were such universities as Dalhousie, McGill, Queen's, Toronto, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. By the time Dr Mackenzie delivered the speech of 1949 quoted earlier, sixty different types of radioisotopes were under preparation at Chalk River, and annual shipments numbered approximately 150. NRX was the foundation of an important first in Canadian medical history, the development of the cobalt-Go beam for cancer therapy. Cobalt-Go was not the first source of radiation to be used for therapeutic purposes. Radium had been so employed for several decades. Radium, however, was extremely costly, difficult to focus, and, in consequence, destructive of healthy as well as diseased tissue. The theoretical benefits of cobalt-Go were well known to Canadian researchers, but until the advent of NRX there was no reliable large-scale means of producing it. In 1950 cancer treatment institutions in two provinces, Saskatchewan and Ontario, separately approached Chalk River to explore the feasibility of incorporating cobalt-Go "sources" into cancer treatment equipment. Chalk River scientists successfully produced sources specifically adapted for such purposes several months later. In addition, personnel of what in 1952 would be incorporated as Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) participated in the design and construction of the Ontario facility. By the fall of 1951 cancer patients were being treated in therapy units incorporating cobalt-Go sources in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and London, Ontario. In little more than a decade AECL cancer treatment units, perhaps Canada's first significant

99 The Plowshares Option hi-tech export, would be shipped around the world. To round out the story it might be noted that by 1963-64 AECL was describing its cobalt60 therapy units as its most important single product. "The Company's Cobalt 60 therapy machines now in use throughout the world are capable of providing a full range of treatments to more than 200,000 patients annually."3 While the manufacture of cancer therapy units may have been the most dramatic - and profitable - component of AECL'S activities, it should not obscure the very rapid expansion that the manufacture and shipment of radioisotopes as a whole experienced. In 1958-59 over 3,700 shipments of Chalk River isotopes were authorized, a twenty-fivefold increase over the 150 that had been shipped ten years earlier.4 Clearly, the peaceful uses of the atom in human health, industry, research, and technology were in full expansion. RESEARCH

I have neither the credentials nor the resources to assess the contribution that the Canadian nuclear program made in those early years to the advancement of science as a whole. To attempt to do so would be both presumptuous and misleading. Some indirect indicators, however, can be adduced. It is clear that the Canadian program contributed very substantially to advances in several branches of the natural sciences, most particularly in physics and chemistry. Between 1947 and 1970 the learned papers that comprise the Published Papers of the Atomic Energy Project of the National Research Council of Canada ran to some twenty-four volumes, easily comparable with most standard encyclopedias. The achievement is all the more impressive because for many years substantial parts of the research program were carried out behind a thick blanket of security, a factor that - regardless of the inherent scientific interest of any findings - prevented their publication. While it is evident that the Canadian nuclear program was long a major and continuing centre for pure and applied research, it would be unconscionable to allow its efforts to be measured by volume alone. In 1965 Wilfred Eggleston, in preparing his book Canada's Nuclear Story, sought the assistance of Dr W.B. Lewis, then senior vice-president for science at AECL, (and long-time director of the Chalk River facility) to deal with the contributions to science and engineering that might legitimately be ascribed to the Canadian program. Dr Lewis's contribution, while not limited to the period of this study, nonetheless comprises the reflections of someone who played a key role in the program and who had the training and experience to identify the highlights. The following is no more than a summary of a summary, but it may

ioo Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

serve to illustrate partially the scope and the depth of the work undertaken. For readers who wish to explore the achievements of the Canadian nuclear program in greater depth, including the work which led to one scientist's sharing the Nobel prize for physics in 1994, I commend to their attention the recently published Canada Enters the Nuclear Age.5 The text tells the story, often through first-hand accounts of participants, of the scientific and technical advances achieved by Canadian nuclear researchers in the period 1939-85. Dr Lewis noted that science across the board benefitted from the contributions of atomic energy research. "Many of the uses are aids chiefly to science and the scientific life. The biological genetic code would probably have remained a closed book without the artificial radioactive isotopes from atomic energy facilities."6 Similarly, scientists at Chalk River made a direct contribution to the understanding of nucleogenesis - the formation in stars of atomic nuclei - through their work on the measurement of mass and energy levels. Other research has found unexpected applications. "Studies of neutrons from cosmic rays at Chalk River produced links between solar flares, the solar wind and interplanetary plasma and magnetic fields."7 Among the many major topics in physics in which Chalk River's researchers were active were refining and extending the theory of radioactive decay by beta-ray emission and refocusing attention on the phenomenon of weak interactions, developing the physics of the fission process, studying the vibrations of atoms in solids (a field in which the findings have led to numerous solid-state electronic devices), and elaborating and testing various models of the structure of the nucleus. In pursuit of their research activities, Chalk River scientists were frequently required to develop ingenious new techniques, as well as new instruments. These developments have added over time to the general reach and capacity of researchers elsewhere. Two in particular related to precise time discrimination and precise energy resolution in carrying out a range of experimental work. Chalk River researchers also contributed notably in the area of the behaviour of metal alloys and ceramics in conditions of high temperature and intense radiation. Right down to quite recent times, even the most sophisticated manufacturing enterprises had relied on a simple pragmatism little different from that of "the Bronze Age metallurgists [who] passed on their practices by tradition without understanding the materials with which they worked."8 Over time, research in this field has led to a better understanding of the fundamentals and to substantial progress in their practical application. Other major research programs anticipated the eventual development of large-scale power reactors. Thus, Canadian scientists made major contributions to the

ioi The Plowshares Option

development of reactor physics, notably in accurately predicting changes in reactivity associated with fuel use as well as alternative methods of producing high-energy neutrons as a possible foundation for power production. Research was also carried out on the transuranic elements, and it contributed to the definition of their accepted values. In the area of chemical research, the capacity of radiation to break down compounds and promote reactions was exploited to further basic research on both organic and inorganic materials. Some of this work contributed to the development of standards for the measurement of radiation doses. Other research dealt with biological adaptations to radiation and the behaviour of selected liquids for possible use as reactor coolants. In addition radioisotopic tracer studies were undertaken to examine a wide range of environmental questions, from the mapping of food chains up from simple to complex life forms to the behaviour of radioactive waste materials in soils, air, and water. Work in basic theoretical physics was carried out in such areas as the characteristics of fission cross-sections (i.e., the capacity of different nuclei to capture neutrons, expressed as "cross-sections") as well as reactor theory. In addition, Canadian scientists played a pioneering role in adapting new mathematical techniques and high-speed digital computers to their research activities. A similar claim may be made respecting the identification, measurement, and control of radiation hazards. Respecting engineering achievements, Chalk River personnel made notable contributions in such areas as electronic circuits, reactor components, and reactor control systems, often driven by the requirements of the research program. Similarly, the safe and efficient use of uranium oxide fuel rods in heavy water reactors depended directly on die basic understanding of their behaviour under differing conditions of radiation and temperature. In retrospect it is evident that the Canadian nuclear program contributed heavily to the credentials that Canadian science enjoyed in the early postwar period in such areas as pure and applied physics, chemistry, and electrical and nuclear engineering, to cite only the most evident. POWER GENERATION

The dream of harnessing the power of the atom to produce plentiful, cheap, and reliable supplies of electricity had been present since the crucial scientific discoveries of the 19305. Hans Halban, the naturalized French scientist who played such a key role in the early phases of the Anglo-Canadian project, had been convinced since his days with

1O2

Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

the Joliot-Curie group in Paris that nuclear-powered generating units would eventually prove feasible. Indeed, much of the research he pursued when he fled to Britain in 1940 was in pursuit of this aim. Befor he departed Britain for Canada in 1942 Halban patented several processes related to the construction and operation of a "uranium boiler." Power generation was high on the list of peaceful uses that policymakers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada expected to emerge in due course from the wartime atomic programs. The fundamental idea was elegant in its simplicity. Theoretically, th vast energy potential locked within an assembly of atomic nuclei need not be released in a single enormous burst. If the fission process could be controlled, i.e., if the right rate could be achieved in the propagation of the reaction, very great quantities of heat would be produced for an extended period of time from very modest amounts of nuclear fuel. The heat could be used to generate large volumes of steam in a conventional boiler, which in turn would drive turbines to generate electricity. No longer would it be necessary to site power stations where the economics of bulk fuel transportation dictated; because the nuclear fuel requirements were so small, they could be located wherever they were needed. This feature appealed particularly to the British, who saw great advantage in reducing their dependence on coal, with its low energy-to-weight ratio. Still another important application beckoned. Not only could copious supplies of electricity be produced from the uranium boiler but, theoretically, the heat-steam-turbine trinity could be used for a variety of powerful propulsion units. Between the elegant simplicity of the theory, however, and the reality of a functioning unit would lie hundreds of complex scientific and engineering challenges. As noted in an earlier chapter, in 1941 the M.A.U.D. Committee had undertaken a review of the potential of uranium as a power source, the second major topic on which it sought to develop a workable policy. The committee quickly concluded that, subject to certain caveats, "we consider that the method has considerable possibilities. The energy that can theoretically be derived from uranium consumed in this way amounts to 12 million h.p. hours per Ib. and in addition large amounts of artificial radio-isotopes would be formed which might have important applications."9 The committee also noted, however, that a number of major hurdles relating to controlling the reaction itself, effectively extracting and using the large amount of heat that would develop, and ensuring that the intensely radioactive by products of the fission process were dealt with safely would first have to be overcome. Hence, while the committee recommended that Halban and his colleague Kowarski be allowed to pursue their work (in the United States

103 The Plowshares Option

or Canada), " [i] t is clear that the scheme requires a long term development and we do not consider that it is worth serious consideration from the point of view of the present war."10 Power generation had been implicit in the Canadian program from the outset. During the dark days in Montreal in 1942-43, when the breakdown in Anglo-American cooperation threatened the existence of the project, much time was spent on extending the theoretical bases for a power reactor and on exploring alternative designs. The challenges in the years ahead would prove greater than originally anticipated. The Canadian attitude in the immediate postwar years is neatly captured in an NRC commentary dated January 1947 on the work of the UNAEC. "Canadian scientists have generally been less optimistic than enthusiastic persons in the United States regarding the early advent of large scale atomic power production. They believe that atomic power on a scale of national industrial importance is economically unsound at the present time. Until great technological difficulties are overcome large scale utilization of atomic power would rapidly exhaust the medium grade uranium and thorium ore resources of the world."11 With the start-up of NRX in 1947, however, a powerful new tool became available to solve the many theoretical and practical issues encumbering the path to large-scale electricity generation. By 1951 most, if not all, were on their way to resolution; the prospect of large-scale power production beckoned. Despite Canada's vast hydroelectric and hydrocarbon energy resources, the estimated cost of nuclear power was falling rapidly enough for it to compete, under certain conditions, with conventional generating sources. The field offered many fruitful opportunities for cooperation with Britain, which, at Calder Hall, had built and put into operation the world's first nuclear power station. Throughout 1952-53 the pace quickened as AECL, which, on its own incorporation in 1952, had assumed responsibility for the Chalk River facility, established a joint engineering team with Ontario Hydro to explore the feasibility of building Canada's first power reactor. In June 1953 the two organizations - perhaps harking back to the decision to build ZEEP as a scale model for NRX - agreed to go ahead with the development of the NPD (nuclear power - demonstration) reactor at Rolphton, Ontario. Initially NPD was to be designed with a power rating of five megawatts, although this rating, like the design itself, would be greatly modified as the project proceeded. The annual report of the Atomic Energy Control Board (the Canadian regulatory authority) the following year described the event as a major milestone in the progress of the Canadian nuclear program. "During the past year there were developments of great significance in the power reactor programme in Canada, notably the decision to design and construct a demonstration

104 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

power reactor. This decision marked the turning point in the research and development effort which began in 1942."12 INTERNATIONAL IMPLICATIONS

It takes little imagination to see how these developments reinforced Canada's position in its external relations. The country's strength in the preeminent high-tech sector of the early postwar period may have owed more to chance than to design. Canadian policymakers, however, were fully aware of the political benefits that accrued and showed every disposition to bolster the sector from which they arose. Well-endowed with uranium, that quintessentially strategic commodity, with a national research and development program moving from strength to strength in the peaceful uses of the atom, and a major contributor to the weapons programs of its two closest allies, Canada must have appeared to friend and foe alike as a country that had been amply repaid for a wartime act of generosity. The official historian of the British nuclear program saw Canada occupying a particularly enviable position in the early fifties. Atomic energy had helped to carve a new status for Canada in the postwar world. It had brought her to the top diplomatic tables and it had demonstrated and enhanced her underlying scientific, technological, and industrial strength. The NRX reactor - planned by a wartime hotchpotch of Canadians, British, New Zealanders, and French and other European refugees - was th most successful experimental pile in the world. In these circumstances Canada was relaxed and generous, ready to help the British and the Americans without bothering too much whether she got back as much as she gave. An odd twist of wartime fate had made her into an important country, atomically speaking. She wanted full collaboration, but she now valued her independence as well.13

International politics would soon demonstrate several of these points in very tangible fashion. In 1953, partly to offset the political impact of the Soviet detonation of a thermonuclear device, u.s. President Eisenhower launched his Atoms for Peace initiative at the United Nations. This initiative would lead, after many twists and turns, to the establishment of the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1957. By any measure the IAEA was, relative to the early hopes for international control of atomic energy, an extremely modest enterprise. Nonetheless, its creation still represented a major multilateral effort in the midst of a still frigid Cold War to advance the peaceful application of atomic energy while constraining its demon twin. That anything at all could be achieved is perhaps the most remarkable feature of the episode.

105 The Plowshares Option

Although the creation of the IAEA is sometimes portrayed as exclusively the work of the United States and the USSR, Canada, along with Britain and a few other advanced nuclear states, played a significant role in the process. If a key consideration in the successful pursuit of multilateral diplomatic initiatives is ensuring that all those essential to the enterprise are at the table, Canada clearly qualified in the rarified world of nuclear diplomacy in the second decade of the postwar period. The exchanges in this period between Ottawa and other, more powerful capitals respecting atomic energy are notable for their frequency and scope. Whether the immediate postwar period did indeed constitute a "golden age" of Canadian diplomacy is perhaps open to debate. What is clear, however, is that the country's growing prowess in the nuclear field made a direct - if often unremarked - contribution to the role that it was creating for itself on the international stage.

9 Variations on a Theme It can be no surprise that under our eyes He has grown unmistakably round. T.S. Eliot, "Bustopher Jones: The Cat about Town," in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

While the preceding chapter has ranged a little ahead, it is time to circle back to the story of political developments pertaining to nuclear matters where we left it at the close of 1951. TRANSATLANTIC EXCHANGES

The new year opened with an opportunity to reinforce the AngloCanadian nuclear relationship at the top when Winston Churchill, who had been returned to power in the British general election of 1951, visited Canada with a number of his ministers as part of a North American tour. In January a joint meeting of Canadian and British ministers took place in Ottawa, with Louis St Laurent and Winston Churchill presiding. Among the topics discussed were atomic weapons and Western policy toward the Soviet Union. Churchill, the reader will recall, had long been a vigorous partisan of atomic weapons and was none too squeamish as to their possible employment. In 1947, while out of power, he had made a case to Mackenzie King (then in London to attend the future Queen Elizabeth's wedding) for threatening their use to enforce an ultimatum on the USSR. King returned from Britain deeply worried that the world was once again on the verge of war. Recalling his conversation with Churchill, King had written in his diary: Churchill had been speaking of the possibility of war along lines very similar to those followed by Bevin [UK foreign secretary in the Attlee government] ... I turned to Churchill and asked him how America could possibly mobilize

107 Variations on a Theme forces at this time for another war. He turned to me sharply, his eyes bulging out of his head, and said: they would, of course, begin the attack in Russia itself. You must know they have had plans all laid for this, for over a year. What the Russians should be told ... if they are unwilling to co-operate, is that the nations that have fought the last war for freedom, have had enough of this war of nerves and intimidation ... We will give you what you want and what is reasonable in the matter of boundaries ... We will meet you in regard to conditions generally. What we will not allow you to do is to destroy Western Europe ... If you do not agree to that here and now, within so many days, we will attack Moscow and your other cities and destroy them with atomic bombs from the air. We will not allow tyranny to be continued.1

The passage of time, his return to power, and, significantly, Soviet acquisition of the bomb clearly had some impact on Churchill's views. At the joint meeting in 1952 Churchill informed the Canadians that the British weapons program was well advanced and that a test would likely take place in Australia the following summer. He argued for continued close collaboration among the wartime nuclear allies, suggesting that, if successful, the British test might help persuade the Americans to cooperate more fully than they were doing. As to the strategic significance of the bomb, "Mr Churchill stressed the importance of the development and improvement of atomic weapons during the period when the relative strength of western countries in conventional weapons would not be adequate to afford them protection."2 He subsequently expressed some unease at the problem the West would face were the Soviets ever to accept the proposals for international control still on the table in the United Nations, "since the West was not sufficiently strong at present to do without the protection that their possession afforded. It was the vast superiority of the United States in atomic weapons and the technical improvements they had achieved, that provided a decisive deterrent at present. "3 From Churchill's perspective, nuclear weapons could, and did, play a stabilizing role in the East-West confrontation: "A deterrent factor in the present dangerous situation was that war would be extremely unpleasant for both sides. Both would suffer what they dreaded most at the outset: Europe would be overrun and the USSR would be blasted by atomic weapons in all its vital points. This gave some assurance that peace could be maintained. It seemed certain that at best there would have to be a prolonged period of cold war. That, however, was much better than catastrophe."4 These views were not seriously questioned or debated by the Canadians present, whose number included C.D. Howe and Lester Pearson. Detailed discussion of Anglo-Canadian nuclear cooperation was reserved as a matter to be pursued separately by Howe and Lord Cherwell.

io8 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

As the year wore on, Ottawa continued to worry over the apparent dichotomy between a Western alliance that depended crucially upon nuclear weapons and what was in effect a standing offer, through the United Nations, to implement an international control system for atomic energy. As Churchill had suggested, on this matter it appeared that the West could no longer take a Soviet "yes" for an answer. Tension between the two positions may have been more apparent than real. Western delegations in New York had effectively linked nuclear and conventional armament questions in the UN Disarmament Commission and argued that if a solution were to be found, it would have to be a "package deal." A number of efforts were undertaken in New York to break the deadlock on the full range of disarmament issues, including several ideas advanced by the Canadian delegation. These initiatives, however, made little progress. Not until Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace proposals the following year did nuclear issues again climb to the top of the multilateral agenda. The year was noteworthy nonetheless respecting nuclear developments. The United Kingdom, as related earlier, successfully tested a fission device in October, thereby achieving international status as the world's third nuclear weapons state. The first American thermonuclear test took place the following month. This succession of events is important for several reasons, not least among them as a demonstration of the dynamic nature of weapons development. As mentioned, on a scale of explosive force, thermonuclear, or fusion, weapons stand in much the same relationship to fission devices as the latter do to the iron bombs of an earlier age. The atom bomb exploded with the equivalent of 10 to 20,000 tons of high explosive, some three orders of magnitude greater than the largest conventional weapon used during World War II. Fusion weapons rapidly pushed the threshold from the kiloton to the megaton, another three orders of magnitude beyond the conventional ordnance of the 19405. The largest test device, detonated by the USSR in 1961, attained a yield of 58 megatons. The most powerful nuclear weapons deployed by the United States had yields of 9 megatons. The explosive force of later generations of American nuclear weapons was greatly scaled back to somewhat less than one megaton (largely due to the greater accuracy of delivery systems and the high level of overkill inherent in larger weapons). While it is physically possible to build devices with yields a thousand or more times greater than those used against Japan, the larger modern strategic weapons deployed are around fifty times as powerful as the Nagasaki bomb.5 This factor of fifty, however, is more than sufficient to demonstrate that whatever faint resemblance "atomic" weapons bore toward their conventional ancestors utterly

i og Variations on a Theme

disappeared in their hydrogen progeny. Brought into humanity's nursery after a Herculean effort, less than a decade into the atomic age nuclear weapons were proliferating at an amazing rate, both in numbers and in killing power. POLICY DEVELOPMENTS

The following year witnessed a rare statement of policy respecting Canada's role in nuclear affairs. In agreeing to reestablish a special parliamentary committee to examine the operations of government respecting atomic energy, C.D. Howe offered a brief statement on the subject. Noting that another group of parliamentarians had dealt with the matter in some detail in 1949, he continued: "The program is still dominated by military requirements. Three years ago the committee was formed just after the first atomic explosion in Russia."6 Since that time Britain had tested one device and the Americans and the Soviets, several. The dual nature of the Canadian program, however, had not changed: "We in Canada are not engaged in military development, but the work that we are doing at Chalk River is of importance to military developments".7 Canada's position had strengthened respecting raw material supplies, as well as in the peaceful uses of atomic energy. Important new uranium deposits had been discovered and were being brought steadily toward production. Canada had also been actively involved in developing uranium supplies in South Africa and Australia. Respecting peaceful uses, "In the field of isotopes Canada has made a very valuable contribution in many directions. Perhaps the most spectacular isotope application has been the cobalt bomb [i.e., for radiotherapy]."8 As to the next major challenge, power generation, "we believe that the time has come to undertake the development of atomic power in this country, and discussions are going on as to ways and means of bringing about that development."9 The parliamentary committee of 1953 devoted considerably more time and attention than its predecessor to examining the Canadian nuclear program, holding ten open sessions between February and May. The parliamentarians visited Chalk River and called CJ. Mackenzie and other leading figures to give evidence before them. The military use of Canada's uranium and its intimate links to international politics were made explicit by W.J. Bennett, then president of Eldorado (and later head of AECL). Eldorado had played a significant role as a wartime sup plier to the Manhattan Project. Subsequently, With the end of the war, there was some reason to believe that the [u.s.] atomic weapon program would be reduced ... As it happened, the program

no Canada's Early Nuclear Policy was expanded ... Possibly the most important single factor was the complete failure of the western nations ... to reach agreement with the USSR ... You will recall the Baruch proposals and the protracted and acrimonious discussions ... in 1946. In any event... the [u.s. weapons program decision] was a most prudent one. The Government of Canada in its turn decided that the wartime partnership should be continued ... this meant that we would not only continue to supply uranium ... but that we would make a vigorous attempt to find new sources.10

Once again the committee report to the Commons is as interesting for what it ignored as for what it treated. The Canadian program was endorsed, as, more specifically, was the Chalk River facility. Even the emergency shutdown of NRX the previous December was turned to advantage. That it had been found possible to repair and rebuild the reactor was commended as a remarkable achievement. Completion of the NRU reactor was strongly supported: "This will enable Canada to stay in the forefront of atomic energy development and research and to meet the growing demands in the industrial, medical, and agricultural fields."11 The parliamentarians enthusiastically welcomed the prospect of generating electricity from nuclear sources: "Your committee recommends that any possible development of atomic energy for industrial power be pressed forward with vigour."12 As had been the case in 1949, the committee steered resolutely away from any consideration of the military applications of the atom - and of the international political implications that had bedeviled humanity since August 1945Despite the parliamentarians' silence, military applications would soon reassert their primacy. In August, barely ten months after the American hydrogen test at Eniwetok, the USSR tested its own thermonuclear weapon. The speed with which the Soviets had equaled the American achievement was deeply unsettling. Within weeks the Canadian Embassy in Washington was warning Ottawa to prepare for "requests from the United States Government for co-operation in the field of continental defence on a scale considerably larger than any which have been made previously."13 Significant differences of opinion existed within the new Eisenhower administration, as did competition between those who wanted more spent on defence and those who wanted to balance the budget and rein in inflationary pressures. The successful Soviet test, however, was likely to lead "to another searching re-examination which will almost certainly come to the conclusion that the defences against a Soviet air attack across the Arctic should be strengthened"14 These concerns were in no way eased by the appearance soon after of two new types of Soviet bomber.

in Variations on a Theme

Until 1953 the absence of a long-range bomber among the forces of the Soviet Union had offered some modest comfort; such bombers as Moscow possessed, modeled on the American 8-29 of World War II vintage, were capable of one-way intercontinental missions only. In the fall of 1953, however, several Western missions in Moscow discovered, or had revealed to them, the existence of two new types of Soviet heavy bomber, comparable to the American 6-52 and 8-36. While only the latter was thought to be in production, the strategic implications were ominous. "Previously it has been thought that the Soviet concept of a war," Charles Ritchie wrote to Lester Pearson, "would follow the line that it would be impossible to defeat the entire Western World at one time, since it would probably be impossible to defeat decisively the principal enemy, die United States. Consequently the USSR would have to take two bites at the cherry by first overrunning most of the Eurasian land mass and creating a strong defensive position from which it would be possible at a future date to continue the war against the United States. Now the Soviet Union might conceivably believe that it would have the capability of defeating the West in one war."15 As early as 1950 the u.s. air force had estimated that fifty Soviet bombs of twenty-kiloton yield, delivered successfully on American targets, would suffice to destroy the war-fighting capacity of the United States. Others put the number somewhat higher, but few doubted that it would require more than one hundred Nagasaki-type weapons, a quantity - with delivery systems - the USSR was expected to have by 1 954-lS The advent of the Soviet H-bomb, several orders of magnitude more destructive than the A-bomb, emphasized how completely the centuries-old invulnerability of North America had vanished. Scant comfort was to be found in the American lead in thermonuclear weaponry; the vast and sprawling Soviet Union offered fewer large concentrations of population and industry suitable for attack by H-bomb. Despite the growing trend toward strategic parity, the searching reexamination the embassy had forecast resulted in American policy taking a major step away from the notion of "nuclear as ultimate weapon" so strongly advocated by Mike Pearson and others. On 30 October 1953 the newly installed president Eisenhower signed National Security Council directive 162(2), an authoritative planning document that decreed that the u.s. military "could plan on using nuclear weapons, tactical as well as strategic, whenever their use would be desirable from a military standpoint."17 While budgetary concerns played a large part in the decision, so also did technology. The American thermonuclear program was well under way. Moreover, at the other end of the scale, by 1953 weapons developers had succeeded in so miniaturizing components that battlefield nuclear artillery shells with a three-kiloton yield

112

Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

were in production. Modest though this development was when compared to the megaton yields of thermonuclear weapons, it still represented an awesome expansion in firepower: five such rounds would deliver approximately the same explosive force as the bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When the policy articulated in NSC162 (2) became public some months later, it would provoke a major debate between the United States and its principal allies. The growing size, power, and versatility of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and the certainty that the Soviets would bend every effort to match it were not lost on the Canadian military leadership. It was one thing to acquiesce in the United States assuming the heavy strategic offensive role for the Western alliance and to recognize that Canada could most effectively contribute through her uranium resources and her nuclear scientific expertise. It was entirely another to ignore the implications of tactical atomic weapons for the Canadian fighting services. Atomic devices had not been used in Korea (perhaps because the period of greatest danger preceded the availability of tactical weapons). Increasingly, however, it appeared that the battlefield of the future would be nuclear and that military forces committed to it would live or die by their capacity to operate in this new environment. In the early 19508 National Defence began a program for the development and acquisition of radiation-detection ("radiac") and decontamination devices and a wide range of related protective equipment for the services. Defensive in nature, the intent clearly was to enhance the survival prospects of Canadian troops fighting in a radioactive environment. The chiefs of staff authorized (probably in 1952) the establishment of an interservice facility to train personnel in atomic, biological, and chemical (ABC) warfare. An army general-staff instruction of August 1953 set out the purpose: "Atomic, biological and chemical weapons are mass destruction and mass casualty producing weapons. In many instances, their effects are so immediate as to be disastrous if used against untrained troops. However, it is also known that the dangers from these weapons are considerably lessened if individuals have a knowledge of the characteristics, capabilities and limitations of these weapons, as well as a knowledge of their own responsibility to take immediate protective action."18 The intent was defensive, and a review of the atomic portion of the training curriculum of the interservice facility offered confirms the orientation. Nonetheless, "defence" was broadly construed: "As a knowledge of the offensive use of any weapons is required for the adequate preparation of defensive measures, there is a requirement for selected officers and NCOS to be specially trained in all aspects of the employ-

ng Variations on a Theme

ment of ABC weapons."19 Moreover, the Canadian high command was anxious to ensure Canadian personnel were not only trained and equipped to deal with atomic warfare but given as much direct experience as could be arranged. General Foulkes, appointed by Claxton as chairman of the Canadian chiefs of staff in 1951 and one of the most influential military figures of the period, put the case in the following terms at a meeting on continental defence in Washington in November 1953. "General Foulkes raised the question of the participation of [Canadian military] personnel ... in United States exercises involving atomic weapons. He explained that, at present, experience in the Canadian armed forces was extremely limited because they could draw only upon Canadian facilities in view of the restrictions ... in the McMahon Act of 1946. It was becoming difficult to explain why at least a selected group of officers and other ranks from Canada could not take part in United States exercises and thus be in a position to train Canadian forces in order to prepare them for possible joint operations."20 It bears repeating to readers in a more suspicious age that my research has turned up no evidence that the Canadian military had direct access to nuclear weapons during the period under study. On the contrary, there is much archival material in support of the conventional wisdom that the arming of Canada's military with such devices followed - and did not precede - the intense political debate over nuclear weapons that took place some years later. There is also considerable evidence that at least some branches of the military had developed firm views on the need for tactical atomic arms quite early and energetically sought to convince Canadian decision makers of the merits of their case. The logic was beginning to compel in the early fifties. If Canada again became engaged in large-scale hostilities, they most likely would be in Europe against a nuclear-armed opponent. If Canada expected to prevail, its fighting forces would need to have the knowledge, skills, and arms necessary to defend themselves and to defeat the opponent's forces. Dr Solandt would put the argument in the following terms in his address of 1954 to DRB personnel: "It becomes increasingly obvious that should there be another total war it will be predominantly atomic. It will not be many years before no first-class armed force, no matter how small, will be able to engage in battle unless it has atomic weapons."21 The implications for Canada's military were clear: "We must begin now to lay a foundation of knowledge that will ultimately enable the Canadian Forces to use atomic weapons. Initially, most of our work will be on the defensive side, because there is still a big gap between our knowledge and our application of it."22

114 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy THE INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT

If the news on Soviet capabilities prompted little but unease, the news on Soviet intentions generated some glimpses of hope. Stalin had died in March 1953. Initially, Western observers detected no major change in Soviet foreign policy. Indeed, when President Eisenhower visited Ottawa in November, the ambitions of the Soviet leaders to achieve world domination - and their implacable will to do so - received pride of place in his remarks at a meeting with the Canadian cabinet. Gradually, however, this perception began to change. At a meeting of NATO ministers in Paris the following mondi, the first real opportunity for a detailed review of Western policy since Stalin's death, there was cautious recognition that some evolution was under way: "It was conceded that the danger of armed aggression had lessened due to the internal preoccupations of the Soviet Government and to the NATO build-up, but the West had to remain vigilant and guard against the possibility that the Soviet Union might revert to more aggressive policies in the future when it had overcome the more pressing internal problems and developed its atomic power ... On the other hand the Western powers should remain continually alert to any real opportunities which might arise for bringing the cold war to an end."23 This guarded sense of optimism, however, in no way implied that the West might lower its guard. The same meeting went on to advance the policy that became known as the "long haul" approach, which called on NATO members to sustain military expenditures at a very high level. Lester Pearson and John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower's secretary of state, emphasized that work under way to develop North American continental air defences deserved recognition as an important part of the total defence effort of the alliance, given the growing Soviet capability for atomic warfare. Nonetheless, there were some interesting straws in the wind. One was the Soviet overture to Ottawa proposing the reestablishment of diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level. Others reached considerably further. As the initially hostile Soviet reaction to Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace proposal was gradually replaced by a guarded but perceptible willingness to cooperate, prospects for a reduction of EastWest tensions improved. Admittedly, any improvement was bound to be modest. The American proposal was in itself very limited, insofar as it dealt solely with the peaceful uses of atomic energy and thereby skirted the very issues that had so long bedeviled the multilateral disarmament negotiations in New York. Ottawa considered that the u.s. initiative "cannot be regarded, therefore, as making any direct contribution to the settlement of the general problem of disarmament

i i 5 Variations on a Theme

and in particular to the question of prohibition of atomic weapons."24 It warranted support, however, for the indirect contribution that it might make. If one could find one field in the atomic sector where East and West could work together, other opportunities for effective cooperation might open up in due course. Some eighteen months after Stalin's death, R.A.D. Ford - a leading Canadian analyst of Soviet affairs and future Canadian ambassador to Moscow - carried out a detailed internal review of Canadian policy toward the USSR. In doing so, he traced the steady evolution of Soviet foreign policy since the death of Stalin and advanced the view that the revolutionary nature of nuclear weapons might be beginning to modify fundamental ideological positions. After noting that the new Soviet leadership had acted promptly to stop its gratuitous anti-American rhetoric and adopt a slightly more civilized approach toward the West, Ford speculated on the impact of the acquisition of nuclear weapons on the leaders. Their achievements had doubtless bred a measure of confidence, offsetting their earlier fears of a Western monopoly of the weapon. The development by both sides of thermonuclear devices, however, had "led to the realisation that each side had under its control a weapon of such vast destructive power that all previous ideas of warfare might have to be revised."25 It was too early to conclude that such a major change had in fact occurred; the West too was aware of the destructive impact of the hydrogen bomb, and "no Western policy has yet been modified in any important way because of this information."26 The possibility was there, however: "It would be unrealistic not to assume ... that this information has helped to reinforce the trend already noticeable immediately after Stalin's death toward a policy of lowering international tension. Mutual self-destruction has certainly never been a Soviet aim. We can even speculate if this horrifying information may not have led some Soviet leaders to wonder if it did not tend to make nonsense of the whole Marxist theory of human development."27 One major conclusion to which Ford's analysis led him was that, despite the growing nuclear strength of the Soviet Union, the general impasse in virtually all dealings with Moscow, and the continuing international tension, there was no sound reason to accept the thesis that war was inevitable. A full-fledged military confrontation might be avoided. Lester Pearson, among others, must have derived some comfort from Ford's analysis. Nuclear strategy within the Western alliance was evolving in directions that Ottawa found disturbing. In January 1954 John Foster Dulles delivered his famous "massive retaliation" speech and in doing so gave notice to the world of an apparently major

116 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

change in the American approach to nuclear weapons. The new policy statement owed a great deal to Nsc-i62 (2) - and nothing at all to consultations with the allies. Henceforward, Dulles asserted, the United States would place less reliance on local defensive capacity and more on its massive retaliatory power to deter. No longer would Washington feel constrained to fight limited engagements in theatres of the enemy's choosing but would depend "primarily upon a great capacity to retaliate, instantly, by means and at places of our choosing."28 From the perspective of the Eisenhower administration the approach held great appeal. It implied, for starters, that the prospect of another Korea - bloody, costly, and ambiguous - could be readily dismissed, for the United States intended to take and hold the strategic initiative. The American nuclear arsenal was expanding rapidly in numbers and in killing power, public resistance was growing to further increases in defence spending, and the costs of establishing a real East-West parity of conventional forces in Europe were enormous, even for the world's richest economy. For Canada, however the policy held little attraction. While Ottawa recognized its appeal for the United States, from a Canadian perspective the doctrine of massive retaliation seemed at one fell swoop to undercut whatever possibility existed within NATO for consultation in advance of the atomic sword being unsheathed, to increase greatly the potential of that sword being used, and to sideswipe Canada's own defence posture. Interestingly, the Canadian perspective was not based predominantly on fear that nuclear weapons would be used - although that element was certainly present - but on the notion that reliance on them might prove futile in some circumstances. Fundamental to the Canadian view, however, was the idea that nuclear weapons were qualitatively different and that the distinction between nuclear and conventional had to be maintained. As Lester Pearson put it, in an analytical memo reporting to Prime Minister St Laurent on the Dulles speech, "Indeed ... [as] local aggressions cannot be answered by atomic bombs on Moscow ... the threat of massive retaliation 'by means and at places of our choosing' may become a somewhat hollow one. The new strategy may result, therefore, in greater rigidity ... If it becomes a question of the atomic bomb and all-out war, or nothing, it may be, too often, nothing."29 Of concern, as well, was the challenge that massive retaliation might come to pose to Canada's contribution to the build-up of Western forces in Europe: "Canadian defence policy has been firmly, and rightly, founded on NATO, and we should do everything we can to keep this foundation strong. On the other hand, it is not going to be easy, politically, to maintain at full and unimpaired strength our forces over-

ii7

Variations on a Theme

seas, if our neighbours begin to reduce their commitments through 'new decisions' and new strategic concepts."30 Pearson was not the only Canadian policymaker to give voice to such concerns. Brooke Claxton at National Defence was disturbed to learn, through NATO channels, that one likely consequence of the "new look" in the alliance would be automatic access to nuclear weapons by theatre commanders, were hostilities ever to break out. During a 195 visit to Ottawa General A.M. Gruenther, supreme commander of the Allied Powers in Europe, briefed the cabinet defence committee. Recognizing that the formally agreed Alliance force levels would not be met, "SHAPE [for Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe] based its planning on two assumptions. The first was that atomic bombs would be available and could be used, and the second was that there would be a German contribution to the Allied forces by the summer of 1957. If either ... were incorrect, Allied planning would have to be completely recast and, from a purely military point of view, the situation would be very serious for the Western side."31 CONTRAPUNTAL C A N A D I A N NOTES

In March, Pearson publicly challenged the application - if not the substance - of massive retaliation at an address before the National Press Club in Washington. Noting that collective action required collective consultation, Pearson stressed the need for diplomacy within and beyond the alliance. In addition to picking out some of the ambiguities and risks implicit in the notion of massive retaliation, much of the speech was a not so veiled warning of the dangers of American unilateralism in an area of crucial concern to all alliance members. "It is essential that we work together in any new defence planning and policy as we have already been working together in NATO - if the great coalition which we have formed for peace is not to be replaced by an entrenched continentalism which, I can assure you, makes no great appeal to your northern neighbour as the best way to prevent war or defeat aggression, and which is not likely to provide a solid basis for good United States-Canadian relations."32 The speech, in James Eayrs words "as forthright an address ... as any delivered before an American audience by a Canadian spokesman," amplified by similar reactions from other allied capitals, appears to have had some impact on American policy.33 It substantially broadened the range of American public debate, which led in due course to significant qualification of the concept of massive retaliation. (Pearson would himself propose an alternative approach, the notion of "graduated deterrence" in a lecture at Princeton University the following

118 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

year.) Canadian reservations respecting tactical nuclear arms, however, had less impact. Concern was widespread among NATO members at the implications of, in effect, excluding governments from the decision-making process that might lead to their use. As one internal document, reporting on British views, put it: "The United Kingdom Government are afraid that the proposed recommendation will remove from NATO Governments the responsibility of taking final decisions about the use of nuclear weapons and ... would enable SACEUR [Supreme Allied Commander Europe] to begin a thermonuclear war in certain eventualities without reference to governments."34 While some effort was made to address such issues, in December 1954, under American prodding and with no prospect of ever reaching the optimal force levels decreed by the military planners, NATO endorsed the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the event of a Soviet attack. Pressures toward the entrenched continentalism that held so little appeal for Pearson, however, remained strong. Early in 1954 General McNaughton, then serving as Canadian chairman of the bilateral Permanent Joint Board of Defence, had informed Ottawa that the USAF remained preoccupied by the growing capacity of the Soviet Union to attack North American targets directly. The American Department of Defence had begun to take a closer interest in the technology of continental air defence, with the signature in 1950 of a contract with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This step led in due course to a number of scientific studies and inquiries as to how best to improve air defences (Projects Charles and East River, and the Lincoln Summer Study Group), the establishment of a research facility devoted to air defence technology (the Lincoln Lab), and the mobilization of an important and prestigious group of scientists who advocated the creation of a vigorous, science-based program to blunt or destroy any transpolar Soviet bomber attack on North America. The process was neither immediate nor unchallenged within the American military establishment, but by 1954 many u.s. policymakers were convinced that something should - and just as importantly could - be done about the Soviet bomber threat. McNaughton reported that the u.s. military was, or shortly would be, convinced of the need for an early-warning radar system in the Arctic (north of the McGill Fence, or Mid-Canada Line, which Canada had already agreed to build, using its own technology and at its own expense, along the fifty-fifth parallel); for the integration of North American air defence capabilities; and for an increase in the depth of the combat area should hostilities occur. "Presumably," McNaughton pointed out, "this would mean fighter or guided missile bases in Canada."35

119 Variations on a Theme

These words were not lost on the Canadian military. An analysis carried out for the Chiefs of Staff Committee some months later took a careful look at the implications for Canadian defence policy of developments in the Great Republic. The report pointed out that much of the recent reported change was more apparent than real and that the American "new look" policy represented a shift in emphasis rather than in kind (an observation that academic analysts would confirm some years later). It noted, however, that nuclear weapons were assuming a steadily more important role in American military thinking: "In the development of u.s. military power, the use of atomic and thermonuclear weapons which are available for strategic and tactical operations, is of fundamental importance, u.s. strategy is based on the assumption that it has the capacity to retaliate instantly by means and at places of its own choosing. Atomic and thermonuclear weapons may not necessarily be used, but they are now considered a part of the United States' conventional military strength."36 The report confirmed McNaughton's observations respecting the high and rising priority of continental defence in American thinking. "[T]he Canadian Government," it concluded, "may be faced with requirements for additional radar systems, interceptor forces, anti-aircraft and guided missile installations, further integration of air defences in one command, and generally closer measures of cooperation in planning and in defence commands."37 However matters played out, demands on Canadian defence resources would move in one direction only - up. Some months later a parallel exercise was undertaken in External Affairs. In a paper entitled "The Air Defence of North America" the department attempted to forecast the key bilateral defence issues likely to come before the government in the period 1955-60. With the benefit of hindsight, it appears to have got most of them right. Noting that the era of the intercontinental missile was fast approaching and that the United States would continue to press for more and better defence installations, the analysis set out four main issues: (a) To what extent will Canada have, as a measure of sovereignty, to participate financially in, and to man these installations? (b) Where is the money and the manpower to be obtained, and to what extent will Canada have to reduce her NATO commitments to meet this requirement? (c) Will the existing arrangements for command and control be adequate, and if not, what steps should Canada take to ensure that the air defence system operates with maximum effectiveness and that ... Canadian interests are protected?

i go Canada's Early Nuclear Policy (d) What is to be Canadian policy with respect to the use of atomic weapons for defence and the arming of Canadian forces with atomic weapons?38

These questions would resound through the bilateral defence relationship for many years to come. The last two would become major issues in the intense national debate that immediately preceded the federal election of 1963. One wonders whether they would have achieved quite such a degree of prominence had the policy makers of the mid19505 ever succeeded in coming to grips with them. As the numbers and killing power of nuclear weapons grew, so did scepticism about their military utility, and in some surprising quarters. Charles Foulkes had argued in the late 19405 that nuclear war, if it came, would resemble World War II; just as the overall effect of the blitz had been to strengthen British determination to resist, so atomic bombardment would have a similar effect on Canadians and Americans. Foulkes, as chairman of the chiefs of staff, was a major influence in preparing the Canadian military for atomic warfare and would go on to play a key role in the complex political dynamic that led to equipping the forces with American tactical arms in the 19605. By the mid-1950s, however, he clearly had come to believe that nuclear arms increasingly had to be seen as predominantly political instruments, rather than military weapons. The episode that sheds light on this development requires a brief introductory note. A year after Brooke Claxton's retirement in 1954 as minister of national defence, he agreed to chair a high-level conference on relations between Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom in which several senior military figures from the three countries participated. The feasibility of using nuclear weapons in any circumstances was vigorously, but inconclusively, debated. Claxton wrote to the man who had been one of his chief military advisors throughout his tenure as defence minister and asked for comments. Foulkes' reply, dated 22 September 1955, is worth quoting in some detail. Foulkes noted that the use of the A-bomb was still highly controversial among defence planners and that "what has now become known as the 'battle of the large and small bomb' still continues to be waged in military and political quarters."39 Much of the difficulty had arisen from the debate occasioned by the U.S. policy of massive retaliation and subsequent American efforts to distinguish sharply between strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. Dulles had categorized the latter as weapons of precision, "although from our military knowledge the smallest atomic weapons are about one-quarter of the size of those used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and it appears to us to be stretching

121 Variations on a Theme

it a little to describe a missile which can cause such damage as a weapon of precision or a tactical weapon."40 The political implications of distinguishing too sharply between tactical and strategic weapons were worrying. Putting small bombs in the same category as conventional weapons might suggest to some that "their use in war would be quite moral and, conversely, suggesting that the use of mass destruction weapons of the thermonuclear type would be immoral, and [would] therefore start a campaign against the use of thermonuclear weapons."41 This would greatly erode their real value, at least in respect to Europe. "[W]e firmly believe [in NATO] that the greatest deterrent to war is the Russian conviction that we intend to use mass destruction weapons in retaliation from the outset even if the attack on the Western World is only by conventional weapons. As you realize, this is the only way that the Western World can in any way create a deterrent to war; for we would never be able to match man for man and gun for gun with Soviet Russia ... nothing should be done which would in any way lessen the deterrent effect of our intention to use mass destruction weapons at the beginning."42 Differences of view within the American military often reflected the nature of the theatre with which they were primarily concerned. General Gruenther [the American NATO commander cited earlier] was chiefly concerned to ensure that nothing be done to reduce the political value of nuclear weapons, given the numerical inferiority of his conventional forces. Tactical weapons could well find an application in a war in Asia, and American commanders were anxious not to foreclose on the option. In either theatre, however, Foulkes was convinced that the United States was prepared to use its weapons if driven to it. "To sum this all up, it is our view here, first that the United States have every intention of using atomic weapons should they be involved in a war anywhere in the world in future and that, while they may start out using tactical atomic weapons, if they are sufficiently pressed they will use all the weapons in their arsenal as they see fit; secondly that there is no military difference between the use of small and large weapons of mass destruction and that the statement used by Dulles in referring to tactical weapons as weapons of precision is really only a relative statement."43 The logic of these considerations pointed up a central paradox of nuclear weapons, however: in a conflict with a nuclear-armed adversary, they possessed value only as long as they were not used. "We are coming to the conclusion here that war as an instrument of policy is no longer effective if it involves the major powers, that all we military now can offer is mutual destruction and therefore the role of the military is

122

Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

not one now of being prepared to win a war but one of assisting the politicians to avoid war. Therefore, our main role today is to create a deterrent which will make it abundantly clear to Soviet Russia that they cannot embark on a war against the Western World without risking total and complete destruction within a very short period."44 Release the genie and the consequences were incalculable.

io The Ties That Bind For some are sane and some are mad And some are good and some are bad And some are better and some are worse. T.S. Eliot, "The Ad-Dressing of Cats," in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

THE CANADIAN PROGRAM

It will be evident from the foregoing that the Canadian nuclear program had long since left the shell in which it had been incubated. Increasingly, Canada's role in nuclear matters affected - and was affected by - considerations arising from the Cold War, general Western military strategy, relations with the United States, scientific and technological progress, economic development and energy supplies - the list might be considerably extended. Publicly at least, the emphasis continued to be placed on the peaceful uses of the program. Lester Pearson clearly indulged in some gilding of the lily when, in response to a parliamentary question on Canada's part in the Quebec Conference arrangements, he responded that "although Canada was a partner in the wartime project to develop atomic weapons, nevertheless as soon as the war was over the Canadian project was directed entirely toward non-military objectives. Canada, therefore, was no longer directly concerned with the exchange of information on atomic weapons."1 Two months later, in introducing a bill to modify the legislation of 1946 that had created the Atomic Energy Control Board, C.D. Howe provided Parliament with a more detailed, and more accurate, account of the Canadian atomic energy program. Howe began by noting that the Canadian program had developed in stages; by June 1954 it had passed through two and was about to enter a third. The first stage had begun in 1942 "with Canada's decision to join with the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom to

124 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

produce an atomic bomb. Canada's contribution was twofold."2 Uranium, the raw material for the bomb was supplied through Eldorado. Second, the facilities of the National Research Council were enlisted to find a way to produce plutonium, a prime ingredient of the atomic bomb. This had led to NRX and the Chalk River facilities. "While the reactor was primarily a research tool, much of the information obtained in its design and operation has been of great value to the military program. "3 The end of the war marked the close of the first stage of the Canadian program. A pause in development followed as governments sought, through the United Nations, a means to eliminate or at least control the threat posed by atomic weapons. "When it became apparent that an international agreement could not be reached consideration had to be given to the future direction of the two phases of the Canadian program ... This was the beginning of the second stage."4 The decision respecting raw materials was straightforward; Canada undertook to continue to furnish uranium for weapons production and to seek out new sources of supply. The Chalk River project, however, was reoriented toward peaceful uses. NRX, the most efficient reactor of its kind in the world, provided a unique opportunity to examine the peacetime applications of atomic energy, notably its use as an energy source for electric power. Not that the military dimension was eliminated. In 1951 a decision had been taken to build the larger and more powerful NRU, a reactor intended to have "a dual purpose - production and research."5 The growing range and feasibility of peaceful applications meant that the second, transitional stage of the Canadian program was approaching its end and that a third stage was about to begin. Unstated, though unmistakable, in Howe's account was the suggestion that the program, driven by the increasing production of radioisotopes and the real prospect of nuclear power generation, would increasingly be devoted to the peaceful applications of the atom. The military dimension was unavoidable, and Canada would continue to do its duty toward her allies. The future, however, belonged to the civil side. Even the raw materials component, driven by the short-term need to produce uranium for military use, would contribute to the peaceful applications by expanding the potential fuel supply for the civilian power stations that lay ahead. While Howe was ready - even eager - to believe that Canada best served its defence needs by contributing to the nuclear capability of the Western alliance, he was fully aware of specifically Canadian interests elsewhere in the field. In an argument that paralleled the British case for an independent nuclear military capacity, Canada should strive for full autonomy respecting nuclear power, for, Howe asserted, "if atomic energy is to make a major contribution to our power

12 5 The Ties That Bind

resources we must be self-sufficient at each stage of the process. We do not now enjoy this self-sufficiency,"6 in part because of the absence of an indigenous Canadian capacity to convert uranium oxide into the uranium metal needed to fabricate fuel assemblies for reactors. Howe announced to Parliament the government's intention to expand Eldorado's Port Hope refinery to permit the production of uranium metal, thereby reducing Canadian dependence on American facilities. Despite these attempts to accentuate the positive, the Canadian program would remain for some years a dual-purpose affair in which the military uses of the atom played a very prominent part. Canadian uranium exports to the United States, most of it destined for the American weapons program, had grown exponentially from the few hundred tons supplied during the war to many tens of thousands of tons. Britain contracted to purchase over twenty thousand tons in 1957, on terms that left it entirely free to make what use it would of it. By the end of the 19508, uranium ranked as Canada's leading mineral export.7 At Chalk River the NRU reactor went operational in 1957 and produced, along with a range of isotopes, substantial quantities of plutonium for export to the United States well into the 19603. (It would also serve as had NRX - as a means of solving selected problems associated with the propulsion systems of u.s. Navy nuclear submarines.) THE AGREEMENTS OF 1Q55

The duality of the program is perhaps best demonstrated by the manner in which Canada responded to changes in American nuclear policy. In 1954 the late and unlamented McMahon Act was replaced by legislation that allowed the u.s. government, under certain stringent conditions, to enter into cooperative arrangements on nuclear matters with other governments. Canada lost no time in exploiting this new opportunity. In September 1954 the Advisory Panel on Atomic Energy met to consider the matter. It quickly concluded that separate agreements for cooperation in military and nonmilitary matters probably would be necessary. Two months later, after extensive informal exchanges between Ottawa and Washington, the panel met again to review progress. "It was considered probable," the panel concluded, "that the non-military agreement would be between the two atomic energy agencies but that it might be desirable that the military agreement be effected by an exchange of notes. It was considered, however, that both the military and non-military agreements, regardless of the manner of their execution, were of such importance that they should be submitted to the Governor-in-Council [i.e. cabinet] for consideration prior to final approval."8

126 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

Parallel negotiations began that resulted in the signature in Washington on 15 June 1955 of two separate bilateral agreements designed to lay down the formal bases for cooperation in both the civil and the military applications of atomic energy. The two texts constitute a milestone in the evolution of Canadian nuclear policy; they also capture in rather dry and dusty treaty language how the government of the day envisaged the nature, scope, and direction of Canada's activities in the nuclear sector. Among the most striking features of the agreement on civil uses are the clear differentiation between the purposes of the Canadian and American programs and, relative to their wartime origins a dozen years earlier, the range and sophistication of both endeavours. Thus, the preamble of the text, after noting the extensive history of bilateral cooperation, continues: "The principal objective of Canada's atomic energy programme is the civil use of atomic energy and, in particular, the use of atomic energy as a source of electric energy. The objective of the atomic energy programme in the United States is twofold: (i) the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes, and (2) the use of atomic energy for defence purposes."9 The scope for potential cooperation was broad. The agreement made provision for the exchange of information (within certain specified limits) on most facets of reactor design, development, and operation; on source (i.e., uranium and thorium) and other materials; on health and safety matters; and on instruments, instrumentation, and devices. Bilateral access to research materials and facilities was broadened, as was the scope for the transfer of equipment and devices. American-produced enriched uranium was to be made available to AECL under certain conditions, an important consideration respecting the nascent Canadian power program. At the same time, American access to Canadian materials and facilities was strengthened. The agreement confirmed that existing arrangements respecting the sale of Canadian uranium and plutonium remained "in full force and effect." A proviso was included to ensure that certain articles of the agreement "shall not be construed to prevent the Government of Canada from selling materials produced in its reactors to the Government of the United States for defence use or from making available, to the extent [Canada] may agree to do so, its reactor testing facilities for use by [the United States] in connection with the defence aspects of atomic energy."10 Although Canada, to meet American domestic legislative requirements, undertook to guarantee that nothing that it received under the terms of the accord "will be used for atomic weapons, or for research on or development of

127 The Ties That Bind

atomic weapons, or for any other military purpose,"11 the United States made no equivalent undertaking relative to anything that it received from Canada. In tabling the text in Parliament, C.D. Howe highlighted the benefits that Canada expected to derive from the agreement: "we will now have access to information on the several types of demonstration power reactors which are being built in the United States ... Another important benefit ... is that it also provides for a more complete exchange of information in the purely scientific field, which, of course, is fundamental to our progress in the development of atomic energy for peaceful purposes."12 The military agreement of June 1955 was a much more circumspect affair. In November the previous year the Joint Special Weapons Policy Committee that Charles Foulkes had established to advise the chiefs of staff met to consider what the Canadian military wanted to have written into the projected accord. The "alliance dimension" of the views expressed is particularly evident. Thus, the committee noted that the ideal would be a full tripartite agreement between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, but it recognized that this aim was not feasible. It stressed, however, the need to expand bilateral serviceto-service liaison facilities, to "enable us to participate in the studies now under way in the u.s. concerning the changes in tactics, organization and logistics, etc., resulting from the introduction of atomic weapons.W1 3 The key need was for information: general - to allow the Canadian forces to develop doctrines compatible with those of the United States and the United Kingdom; and service-specific - on such matters as particular weapons delivery systems, the effects on personnel, and the offensive and defensive operation of atomic warheads in "under-water weapons, surface to air, and air to air missiles for use in the defence of Canadian territory."14 The committee thought it would be inadvisable to spell out these considerations in detail but stressed the need to secure the broadest possible access to classified American military information. The text, as signed, clearly went some distance toward meeting the objectives set out above. Much would depend, however, on how much or how little the American military wished to provide. The preamble noted that both governments recognized the need to be prepared to meet the contingencies of atomic warfare and the utility of exchanging information to this end. These efforts were placed firmly in the context of a broader alliance structure: "While the United States and Canada are participating in international arrangements for their mutual defence and security and making substantial and material

128 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

contribution thereto, each government will from time to time make available to the other government atomic information which the government making such information available deems necessary."15 The aims of the exchange were then specified as "(a) the development of defence plans; (b) the training of personnel in the employment o/and defence against atomic weapons; and (c) the evaluation of the capabilities of potential enemies in the employment of atomic weapons."16 The need for these activities to meet American congressional scrutiny is clear from the several additional qualifications embodied in the text. Thus, any information exchanged was to be used exclusively for defence plans in the mutual interests of the two countries; all such transfers were to comply with existing domestic legislation; and no transfer by the United States to Canada was to be made of "atomic weapons or special nuclear material." While the agreement may have fallen short of the open sesame that some Canadian military commanders had hoped for, it would be broadened in due course.17 Of greater importance, for the first time an explicit, formal basis had been established for bilateral service exchanges on nuclear matters. PAST AND PROLOGUE

Although Canadian nuclear policy would continue to evolve in the years ahead - sometimes in new and unusual ways - the agreements of 1955 show that the broad lines of the Canadian approach were already well established. Canada had opted early on not to develop its own explosive device. The country had no reservations, however, in assisting in the weapons programs of its closest allies; indeed, it saw such efforts as a major contribution to its own defence and to a wider alliance of similar countries locked into a long-term and potentially catastrophic conflict with a hostile and powerful adversary. The Canadian nuclear program, moreover, was much more than a simple adjunct to national defence policy. A revolutionary new world - by turns exhilarating and intimidating - had opened up in which Canada had a lead role to play. The peaceful uses of the atom were many and important, and they were potentially crucial contributors to the expansion of humanity's knowledge, the alleviation of its suffering, and the growth of its welfare and prosperity. While policymakers made no apology for the military dimension of the program, they clearly much preferred to emphasize its increasingly demonstrable peaceful uses. The destructive applications of the atom, however, were rarely absent from view. If Canada's newly acquired nuclear credentials had greatly enhanced her prestige and brought her to the "top diplomatic tables," it was often only to

lag The Ties That Bind

join others at the existential banquet in peering into the nuclear abyss that lay at their feet. Canadian military forces would in due course be equipped with nuclear arms. The foundations that O.M. Solandt, in 1954, had urged be laid would come to have quite an elaborate structure reared upon them.18 In one of the many ironies of Canada's nuclear journey, the chief agent would be Lester Pearson, long one of the most ardent and eloquent opponents of such weapons. However, they would never be placed at the independent disposition of the Canadian government, and such use as might have been made of them was closely constrained by NATO and American military policy (no doubt a matter of great relief to the Warsaw Pact troops, who would have been incinerated by them). Once Canada acceded to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - which occasioned little public debate - the great majority of these arms were quickly phased out. Interestingly, there was at least one more offer (beyond that described earlier) of u.s. weapons, to be under the exclusive control as well as custody of Canadian authorities. In 1958, despite the apparent prohibition contained in the defence agreement of 1955, the American National Security Council recommended to President Eisenhower that Canada be offered certain tactical weapons applicable in a continental defence role. "The evolving threat to continental security and the exposed geographic position of Canada ... generate a requirement for reduced reaction time which can be met only if Canada has actual custody and authority to use the nuclear warheads in question."19 American motivation was to deal with the political sensitivities expected were the United States to retain custody of the nuclear components of Canadian manned weapons. "To the Canadians such an arrangement could carry an implication of distrust or a limitation of the partnership status envisioned under our continental defense arrangements."20. The offer was never taken up. Two months later, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker commented in the Commons, "Believing that the spread of nuclear weapons at the independent disposal of individual nations should be limited, we consider that it is expedient that ownership and custody of the nuclear warheads should remain with the United States."21 Enough of the story has now been told for me to try to answer the question that gave rise to this exploration. The final chapter of this book will comprise my attempt.

11 The Puzzle Reconsidered He's broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity. His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare, And when you reach the scene of crime - Macavity 's not there! T.S. Eliot, "Macavity: The Mystery Cat," in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

Why then did Canada, alone among the pioneer nuclear states, choose not to develop its own independent arsenal? The choice clearly was Canada's to make, consciously or unconsciously. In contrast to those analysts who see Canadian foreign and defence policy as essentially imposed on the country from outside, I have found no evidence at all that either the United States or Britain - the only possible sources of such influence at the time - ever sought to discourage Canada from pursuing the nuclear option. Indeed, the evidence presented earlier points in the opposite direction. A number of answers to the underlying question are possible, many of them plausible, none entirely satisfactory. In deference to CJ. Mackenzie's view of nuclear science as the new microscope, I propose to offer answers at several different powers of magnification. FATE

At the widest aperture of the lens the short answer is that during the crucial years in which the foundations of Canadian policy were being laid down, the country's leaders and electorate saw neither a military nor a political role for Canadian nuclear weapons. Setting aside for the moment the intricate interplay of domestic forces that will necessarily affect the decision, states appear to "go nuclear" for two distinct kinds of considerations. In some instances perceptions of military need (articulated as the demands of national security) are paramount. These perceptions vary with time and place, but at the heart of a given country's

131 The Puzzle Reconsidered

decision to obtain an arsenal is a conviction that nuclear weapons are essential to recover, maintain, or expand its capacity to deal with an identifiable external threat. One or more such threats are known to exist, which, it is believed, can be parried only by the possession - and use if necessary - of nuclear weapons. No doubt every state that has ever elected to pursue, overtly or covertly, its own arsenal would argue that it had been obliged to do so because of its parlous geopolitical situation. To the dispassionate outside observer, however, it seems evident that in the decisions of several currently acknowledged nuclear weapons states - all of which shall remain nameless - considerations of national prestige were more important than any objective assessment of the utility of such devices. In several instances a credible case can be made that the acquisition of nuclear arms has decreased, rather than enhanced, national security. Yet the decisions to go ahead were made. Considerations of security may well shade into considerations of prestige; in international relations a state's reputation is often acknowledged as a component of its power. Moreover, any sharp distinction between the two categories must be arbitrary. Even with these caveats, however, it is clear that fear of an identifiable enemy and a desire to be accounted powerful by others are two of the most potent motives that move states to acquire nuclear weapons. In early postwar Canada these chords resonated in an unusual - and perhaps unique - manner. It was not that the country had no external threats. There may have been only one, but it was of such a magnitude that it could only be addressed collectively. By 1947, as the Cadieux memo discussed earlier makes clear, the conviction was growing that Canada's security needs were best dealt with by contributing energetically to the American nuclear build-up, as well as to the British development program, and by deploying our real, if limited, nuclear assets as effectively as possible to strengthen broader alliance goals. Curiously, considerations of prestige may well have been attenuated by the very real gains in influence that Canada had made during the world war. The country had moved up in the international standings from quasi-colony to middle power. The implications of the transition would take some years to work themselves out. While Canadians were proud of their new role in the world, they still saw the country as both small and young, with most of its growth still before it. Neither history nor expectation nor need argued for a claim to a greater role on the world stage. Occasional wisps of aromatic great-power smoke may have tickled the national nostrils from time to time but, as one observer noted some years ago, neither the country nor its decision makers showed much disposition to inhale.

132

Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

CHANCE

In Wonderful Life, one of Stephen Jay Gould's many insightful books on the evolution of life on earth (and a personal favorite), the writer makes a persuasive case for the role of contingency in understanding where we came from and who we are. "The modern order was not guaranteed by basic laws (natural selection, mechanical superiority in anatomical design) or even by lower-level generalities of ecology or evolutionary theory. The modern order is largely a product of contingency ... life had a sensible and resolvable history, generally pleasing to us, since we did manage to arise, just a geological minute ago. But... any replay [of life's tape] altered by an apparently insignificant jot or tittle at the outset, would have yielded an equally sensible and resolvable outcome of entirely different form."1 Admittedly, it is a very long jump from the majestic, 6oo-million year sweep of Gould's canvass, covering as it does the development of multicellular life on earth, to the infinitesimally small 15-year reach of this miniature. In recounting the development of Canada's nuclear policy, however, it is difficult to escape the impression that despite the close, often causal, links among events, an ostensibly modest change here or there would have yielded a significantly different outcome. From the perspective of 1940, Canada's policy stance in 1955 was only one, and not necessarily the most probable, of the several possible futures that lay open. The outcome of 1955 is indeed resolvable in terms of the events that preceded it, but there is little about it that strikes one as necessary or inevitable. A certain prudence is appropriate here, as, loosely employed, the "what if, then perhaps" algorithm applied to the historical record can produce whatever effect is desired. That said, however, the period 1940-1955 is rife with pivot points that, had they operated slightly differently, could have sent the country down other, sharply different paths. If, for example, the United Kingdom and the United States had succeeded in establishing an effective atomic partnership at the outset of the war, it is improbable that the Canadian nuclear program would have amounted to much more than that of a significant, but secondary, purveyor of uranium. Had the Canadian government, following the Washington tripartite declaration, committed itself less completely to the quest for an international control system, those who made the military case for an autonomous weapon might well have won a more sympathetic hearing. Assume that the United Kingdom had acquiesced in the American desire not to have production plants established outside North America, and the Canadian role again would have differed. Had Klaus Fuchs (rarely thought of as a "father of

133 The Puzzle Reconsidered

Canadian non-proliferation policy") been arrested earlier - or later an integrated joint weapons-production program involving the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada might well have been put into operation sometime in 1950. None of these scenarios is inherently less, or more, probable than the actual result. Each would have been just as intimately linked to preceding events, just as resolvable - and quite different from what now appears to us to be the natural, logical outcome. Accordingly, in seeking an answer to the question I posed at the outset of this expedition, the impact of unforeseen - and perhaps unforeseeable - events deserves pride of place. CHARACTER, INDIVIDUAL AND NATIONAL

Reactive though Canadian policy often was, it was never random. The responses that drove policy emerged from a complex interplay of personalities, interests, and values. While I will explore this aspect of the puzzle in greater detail below, it should be noted in passing that much the same might be said of the players as has been said of the events. A different mix of personalities might well have produced a substantially different policy outcome. A less-determined C.J. Mackenzie, a more belligerent Mackenzie King, a more autonomously minded Louis St Laurent might well have resulted in the country following quite a different path. Let us return to that mystery of the dog that didn't bark, the absence of any serious debate in private or in public of the costs and benefits of an independent Canadian arsenal. Why such a momentous issue was not debated offers a fertile field for speculation. As noted above, Canadian military leaders articulated the military case for such an option as early as October 1945. Possible explanations range from some dark atavistic fear of the genie that had been released from the bottle to a general unwillingness, in the absence of any obvious need to do so, on the part of ministers and senior officials to press for a debate on a matter on which the prime minister's views were already well known. My own sense of the record leads me to focus on the role of public opinion. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, Canadians were chiefly interested in enjoying the fruits of peace. They had fought long, hard, and effectively and had spent vast sums on the war effort. With the war won, however, there was an intense desire to bring the troops home, demobilize, and return to peacetime pursuits. Military budgets were cut back quickly and radically and some of the resources diverted to fund the social safety measures that the Mackenzie King government, astutely reading public opinion, quickly introduced. (Indeed, some attribute to these measures King's success, in contrast

134 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

to the fate of such leaders as Britain's Churchill, in holding on to power after the war.) Canadians were proud of the part the country had played in winning the war and showed no disposition at all to return to their semicolonial status of 1939. As noted earlier, however, there were few calls for the country to assert a major, continuing, and cosdy new role on the international stage. It is intriguing to note that Britain's experience closely paralleled Canada's, although with a diametrically opposite outcome. The United Kingdom, as well, opted to develop its independent arsenal without the benefit of major debate within or beyond government. Consider Margaret Gowing's analysis: "The British decision to make an atomic bomb had 'emerged' from a body of general assumptions. It had not been a response to an immediate military threat but rather something fundamentalist and almost instinctive - a feeling that Britain must possess so climacteric a weapon in order to deter an atomically armed enemy, a feeling that Britain as a great power must acquire all major new weapons, a feeling that atomic weapons were a manifestation of the scientific and technological superiority on which Britain's strength, so deficient if measured in sheer numbers of men, must depend."2 Cogent objections were offered - by a very few - within the British government. They were not taken seriously, however, and were simply brushed aside by the advocates of the bomb. It seems that Britain instinctively knew it had to have the weapon, as, perhaps, Canada instinctively knew that it did not. John Holmes, some years ago, offered an insightful contrast of the British and Canadian experiences. "The British developed their own reactor for peacetime purposes, but they also went ahead to produce their own nuclear bombs. They seem never to have taken an agonizing decision to produce a bomb, because it was taken for granted that a country of Britain's assumed stature in the world would have one. The Canadian situation was the reverse. At no time was serious consideration given to producing Canada's own bomb ... there is no evidence of Canadian anxiety to have a finger on the control of such a weapon. Canadians were beginning to refer to themselves as a middle power, but few had ambitions for the responsibilities of great-power status."3 C H A R A C T E R : A CLOSER LOOK While it is intellectually rewarding to speculate on the alternative futures that lay before the country in 1940, the policymakers of the day like the rest of us - had to play the hand they were dealt. Accordingly, let us now increase the magnification and focus more closely on the factors that appear to have been particularly influential in leading to

135 The Puzzle Reconsidered

the actual policy outcome in 1955. Clearly, they were not unique to the nuclear sector. Canadians were a more nationalistic people in 1945 than they had been in 1939. There was, however, little disposition to turn that nationalism into a secular religion. For many, situating Canada within a broader community of nations - and even recognizing the latter's claims - was neither threatening nor restrictive. English-speaking Canadians, in particular, were comfortable with the notion of Canada as a member of a wider Anglo-American community. Adopting a perspective wider than the immediate claims and ambitions of the territorial state - and accepting limitations on the latter - seems to have come more easily to Canada than to older, better defined, and perhaps more brittle communities. One characteristic that leaps out at the observer is that the policies adopted respecting atomic energy were highly consistent with the key themes of Canada's broader foreign and defence policy. James Eayrs, for example, argues that as early as 1943 Ottawa had already settled on "the three fundamental principles which would guide its policy on post-war international organization."4 These were, as summarized by Eayrs, that "international society required for its safety and well-being an effective system of collective security"; that "any future international organization ought to provide generously for the role of Member States other than the Great Powers"; and that "those states best qualified by resources and experience to make a constructive contribution to the solution of economic and social problems ought to play a commanding role in whatever international institution is created to deal with them."5 Nor were these functional ideas limited to foreign policy. Brooke Claxton, O.M. Solandt, and Charles Foulkes all applied a very similar style of reasoning in developing their approaches to major defence issues. Within this broader framework it is not surprising that Canada should have felt impelled, with others, to look first to the newly created United Nations to control the awesome new powers science had unleashed, and when that effort failed, to develop closer relations with its more powerful allies to address its own defence needs. If Canadian reactors were the most efficient producers of plutonium and American weapons plants the most efficient producers of weapons and delivery systems, then clearly, the broader interest would be best served by each concentrating its efforts accordingly. (The occasional expressions of Canadian exasperation respecting Britain's role often arose from the latter's insistence on its great-power rank, and its refusal to play the game according to the functional rules.) In short, despite the revolutionary nature of the issues that nuclear developments pushed to the

136 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

fore and despite the country's uniquely strong capabilities and resources in the sector, there is nothing in the mix of policies adopted that is inconsistent with the underlying themes of broader postwar Canadian foreign and defence policy. Moreover, while the benefits of an independent arsenal were far from clear, die costs (an ever-present concern in the Ottawa of die 19408) were not. While Canada doubdess could have pursued the independent weapons option had it been a matter of national survival, doing so would have required a conviction that survival was indeed at stake. The American Manhattan project was particularly expensive because of its pioneering nature. While any future weapons state could rule out certain options because of the American experience, building a nuclear device in the early postwar years was still an enormously costly undertaking. Britain found the task a challenge and felt die strain in certain sectors of her economy. While Canada would have been in a stronger financial position than the United Kingdom to have undertaken such a project, Canada had not nearly die depth of industrial, scientific, engineering, and technical resources that Britain, despite her wartime losses, could still field. In the immediate postwar period there were many other potential government programs requiring funding that were doubtless, to policymakers and voters alike, far more attractive choices than a large, expensive, prestige-driven project of little immediate relevance. As noted earlier, in the nuclear area, as in other sectors of government policy-making, goals were often driven by the availability of resources. In die United States and the United Kingdom the reverse was more often true, at least in relation to nuclear policy. Nor was it clear how a state could disembark from the nuclear option once it was launched upon it. The pace of nuclear weapons development was nothing short of ferocious. Within a decade after the bombs were dropped on Japan, the number of weapons states had increased from one to three, the weapons themselves had proliferated from less than a dozen to well over a thousand, and their killing power had grown to the point that the devices that had devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki were increasingly seen as small tactical weapons. Nuclear artillery was already operational, and few doubted that the intercontinental ballistic missile was close behind. The logic was irresistible to move from kiloton to megaton; from a few large and clumsy devuces to many small and deadly ones; from bombers to missiles; from scattered bases to hardened silos (and, later, submarines); from ultimate weapon of last resort to low-cost substitute for expensive manpower. In short, once seated upon the nuclear tiger, the rider could have no early hope of dismounting.

137 The Puzzle Reconsidered

The number, sophistication, and killing power of nuclear weapons would continue to escalate for many years. In 1982 one writer calculated that the aggregate explosive capacity of the world's nuclear arsenals amounted to some twenty billion tons of TNT equivalent, about four tons for every child, woman, and man on the face of the earth. The consequences for North America and much of Eurasia of a medium/heavy exchange of American and Soviet weapons were such after the effects of blast, heat, electromagnetic pulse, short- and longterm radiation damage, and environmental degradation and disruption were considered - that irreversible damage would be done to human society and most, perhaps all, complex terrestrial life forms in the Northern Hemisphere. Whatever remained of the United States, he hauntingly suggested, would amount to "a republic of insects and grass."6 None of this would have come as a surprise to Canadian policymakers in the 19405; the dynamism of nuclear weapons development had been evident from the outset. In 1946 the United States invited all members of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission to send observers to its atomic test series at Bikini atoll in the Pacific. (Whether this was to impress upon the delegates the crucial nature of the task before them or to demonstrate American prowess - or both - is not clear.) One of Canada's two observers, a senior RCAF officer, subsequently reported, "The initial lead in producing these bombs is not decisive, because any country, by the expenditure of sufficient money and the utilization of the best men, can produce bombs, the first of which will be comparable with those now available."7 "The horror of this weapon," he went on in language rarely employed by a senior military leader, "must not be underestimated."8 While there were several cogent arguments for Canada to forego manufacture her own weapon, I do not find that they constitute an adequate explanation, in part because in the absence of a major policy debate, they evidently were never put forward in any consistent manner. Unless we are prepared to accept that all major decision makers of the period drank from the same spring, we need to poke a little further into the underbrush. My own perspective is to see in early Canadian nuclear policy the outcome of several different interests and elements, sometimes clashing, sometimes reinforcing each other. While the list doubtless could be extended, four are noteworthy. The science and technology imperative clearly was important. The notion that atomic energy represented a new and crucially important human endeavour, one in which fate and circumstance had dealt Canada an usually strong hand to play, was influential throughout the formative years. Best represented by

138 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

CJ. Mackenzie and C.D. Howe, this line of thinking was crucial in establishing the Canadian nuclear project during the war, as well as in the immediate aftermath. Canada, as a Western power, was predisposed to work with Britain and the United States on any project that would contribute to victory. That said, Mackenzie's conviction that atomic energy represented a revolutionary advance in science and technology - one from which Canada could not afford to be absent was essential in mobilizing the political, technical, and financial support that the project needed and, of equal importance, in rescuing it on the several occasions when it threatened to founder. Although this strand would have to compete with others once the political and military implications of atomic energy forced themselves onto the agenda, considerations of science and technology, and the many political and economic benefits expected to develop from them, remained important throughout the period. A second set of policy influences arose from what might be termed the alliance constant. Canada fought World War II as part of a wider alliance, emerged from the crucible with very close formal and informal ties with London and Washington, and almost immediately was cast into another struggle that threatened to dwarf the hostilities of 193945. It was already received wisdom in the Ottawa of 1946 that the single serious threat to the country's security was of such a magnitude that it could only be countered by a collective response. A number of distinguished wartime names might be associated with this policy theme, but in the nuclear sector that of Louis St Laurent stands out in sharpest relief. St Laurent appears to have been convinced that Canada was in duty bound to play its part in the steadily worsening struggle with the Soviet Union. This conviction may have rested in part on his religious beliefs. As a practising Catholic of the era, he would have shared the Catholic Church's staunch opposition to communism. Whatever the source, he clearly acted as though Canada had responsibilities that extended well beyond its borders and successfully fought off attempts by Mackenzie King to revert to his prewar isolationism. The nuclear record contains evidence that St Laurent was prepared to take decisions (e.g., respecting American military bases in Canada) likely to prove domestically unpopular if he was convinced that alliance needs required them to be made. Howe and Mackenzie could usually be confident of his support in identifying niches (e.g., in uranium mining or reactor construction) likely to be supportive of broader alliance aims. The military dimension was also important. The military case for an independent Canadian arsenal was first made within three months of the weapons' use against Japan. It was not pressed forward, however,

139 The Puzzle Reconsidered

probably because of the position adopted by Canada at the Washington tripartite conference and articulated in Prime Minister King's policy statement in December 1945. Between the end of the war and the outbreak of the Korean hostilities the energies of Canada's military leaders were fully absorbed in trying to maintain a core military capability in the face of a massive redirection of resources away from warrelated activities to the highly popular - and expensive - social welfare programs that the King government had introduced.9 Some influential voices, however, such as those of O.M. Solandt and Charles Foulkes, never lost sight of the implications for the Canadian armed forces of nuclear developments. Neither seems to have had any great difficulty in abandoning the claim to an autonomous Canadian capability. They, like others, expected that if Canada again went to war, it would be, as it had been in the past, as a member of a broader alliance. The allocation of roles in terms of national capacities and the presumed eventual availability of nuclear weapons from allied sources largely negated any sense of real need respecting the independent control and use of such devices. A fourth strand might be termed the humanitarian concern. From the dropping of the weapons on Japan, a number of influential Canadian policymakers were appalled by the implications of the atom. "The only enduring result of man's works, Santayana has said, is that the earth may cast a slightly different shadow on the moon."10 The advent of the nuclear age made such assessments dramatically more probable. In the public and private comments by leaders of the day there is a barely concealed note of fear at the long-term threat that nuclear weapons posed to the survival of the human species. Rhetorical flourishes there were aplenty, but they were based on a widespread realization that the atomic bomb had indeed drawn a line through the centuries. Mackenzie King, the reader will recall, described the bomb as a "Frankenstein" and showed no interest at all in having Canada acquire such a weapon for its own use. A recurring theme in his diary entries is that a powerful and malignant new force had been introduced into the affairs of humanity. While his overall influence waned in the last few years before he ceded power to St Laurent, King set and maintained the initial Canadian attitude toward nuclear weapons. Lester Pearson, moreover, quickly developed into perhaps the most eloquent and consistent advocate of the position that nuclear weapons posed a real and continuing threat to humanity. Although, as noted earlier, he would eventually become the agent by which tactical nuclear weapons were made available to the Canadian armed forces, he was also instrumental in insisting that the "threat to humanity" aspect was kept in the forefront of Canadian policy formulation. This element, an additional

140 Canada's Early Nuclear Policy

irony, would in due course be taken up by Pearson's political adversaries and would continue to strengthen in the ig6os and 19705 as the absurdity of large-scale nuclear war became ever more apparent. In the formative years of Canadian policy, however, Pearson was one of the most influential voices within the Canadian government to argue against nuclear weapons. His conviction that such arms represented a continuing threat to humanity's earthly abode resonated widely within and beyond the Canadian policy establishment. THE ANVIL OF CIRCUMSTANCE

In the end, the dominant impression one forms of Canada's early nuclear policy is of a series of adaptive responses to differing issues, hammered out as they arose, conditioned by the values, interests, and personalities of the participants, and bounded by an unstated though well-grounded - sense of what the Canadian electorate would accept. A broad policy framework based on three or four basic propositions (or attitudes) took form early on and proved sufficiently robust to accommodate the several contending Canadian interests that came forward. There was, however, little, if anything, that resembled a single, coherent "strategic vision" providing an agreed basis for vigorous action. It must also be acknowledged that the issues that were forced upon Canadian policymakers by atomic energy were often unprecedented. They were obliged to grapple with issues for which there often were no good or clear answers. The gates of the prenuclear age had clanged shut, and behind them lay the certitudes that had comforted so many for so long. The country could neither remain where it was nor advance in confidence, for the way ahead was treacherous and unmapped. Bright new opportunities beckoned, but safety was nowhere to be found. Like others, Canada's policymakers sought to balance competing claims and interests, to pluck the rose while avoiding the thorn. With what success cannot yet be determined, for it is not clear whether the reduced threat of major nuclear war consequent upon the end of the Cold War is a temporary or a longer-term phenomenon. Although the threat of full-scale nuclear war has receded sharply in recent years, the broader history of our era offers few grounds for optimism. The number of weapons states, the weapons themselves, and their killing power are all far greater than they were five decades ago. And the technology becomes ever simpler and ever cheaper. It may be, Charles Ritchie suggested in the early years of the atomic age, that effective control of nuclear weapons is ultimately incompatible with a world organized into territorial states. The question remains unanswered.

Notes

CHAPTER ONE

1 The Treaty, or Peace, of Westphalia brought the European religious wars to their inconclusive end. 2 I am indebted for this summary to Joseph Frankel and his treatment of the nature and characteristics of the state in his International Relations, 8-20, and International Politics, 35-7. 3 Cooper, The Post-Modern State, 17-18. 4 Ibid., 19. 5 Ibid., 19-20. 6 Ibid., 25-6. 7 The treaty on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons (the key formal component of the nonproliferation regime, usually referred to as the NPT) was opened for signature in 1968 and entered into force in 1970. It was the product of lengthy and detailed negotiations within the UN initiated by the "Irish Resolution" of 1961, an interesting example of how influential a small state can sometimes be. In 1995, at its fourth review conference, states party to the NPT agreed to its indefinite extension - a major victory for those seeking to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. The treaty is now one of the most widely subscribed accords within the corpus of international law. Unfortunately its fragility has also been demonstrated by the recent conversion of Indian and Pakistani nuclear capabilities from covert to overt. 8 C.P. Stacey, in Arms, Men and Governments, 66, puts the number of men and women who performed full-time duty in the three services at 1,086,343. Over 96,000 were killed, wounded, or died in service.

142 Notes to pages 7-11 9 Hall, North American Supply, 487-8. Total Canadian assistance to Britain over the full duration of the war was still higher. Hall notes that as of 1945, all mutual-aid expenditures (including aid to the United Kingdom) were treated as a direct charge on Canadian war appropriations. The order of magnitude, however, is correct. Granatstein, in Canada's War, puts the cost to Canada of the war between 1939 and 1945 at $18 billion and writes, "almost one-fifth of that had been given freely to Britain" (316). 10 Stairs, "Realists At Work," 3. 11 Ibid., 5. 12 Clearly, some saw functional representation as a distant second best. In 1944 Canada unsuccessfully sought Britain's support for a permanent seat on what was to become the UN Security Council, on the bases of Canada's military strength and the part Canada was playing in defeating Germany and Japan. (See Eayrs, In Defence of Canada, 164-5.) 13 Granatstein, Canada's War, 421. 14 Eggleston, Canada's Nuclear Story, 206. 15 Mackenzie, "Where Are We in the Atomic Age?" 16 It is a puzzle that has attracted surprisingly little academic attention in Canada or elsewhere. The only other detailed analysis that I am aware of is contained in "Canada and the Nuclear Arms Race: A Case Study in Unilateral Self-Restraint," an MA thesis submitted byJ.M. Sisto to McGill University in 1997. While Sisto's study takes a more theoretical approach and extends into the 19805, it does focus on the same conundrum. He has also remarked, after a more extensive review of the comparative literature than mine, on the paucity of attention paid to the Canadian example a curious state of affairs, given the inherent importance of nonproliferation issues. CHAPTER TWO

i The sketch of relevant developments in physics that follows draws heavily from the works of Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, and Eggleston, Canada's Nuclear Story. Both authors have gone to considerable lengths to make available to the lay reader the story of one of the most remarkable voyages of the human intelligence ever undertaken. The reader should also be advised that throughout the balance of the text the terms "atom" "atomic" "nuclear" "atomic pile" and "reactor" have been used rather freely. Precision argues against "atom" and for "nuclear" on the grounds that the interactions that lie at the heart of this story have relatively little to do with the atom and a great deal to do with the nucleus. "Atom" and "atomic," however, were much the preferred terms during the period; "nuclear" did not enter into common use until after the explosion of the

143 Notes to pages 13-19 first thermonuclear device. I have opted not to press the claims of precision too far, out of deference to the historical record and a desire to avoid boring the reader unnecessarily with constant repetition. 2 Gribbin, Schrodinger's Cat, 31-2. 3 Ernest Rutherford, Radio-Activity, as quoted in Eggleston, Canada's Nuclear Story, 8.

4 Ibid. 5 Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, 13. 6 Fermi himself had used paraffin in his experiments. Others would quickly discover, first, graphite and, subsequently, heavy water to be much more effective means of slowing the neutrons released. The French work on heavy water-slow neutron interactions would prove particularly important to the future Canadian program. 7 Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, 22. 8 Ibid., 22-3. g Ibid., 23. 10 As quoted in Eggleston, Canada's Nuclear Story, 11. 11 Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, 25. 12 The latter two, both naturalized Frenchmen, would become key members of the Anglo-Canadian research team established in Montreal during the war and would exert an important and continuing influence on Canadian nuclear developments. 13 The name of the committee originated in an episode that offers some insight into conditions then prevailing. Following the German invasion of Denmark in 1940, Niels Bohr telegraphed Otto Frisch in Britain with some information and asking him to " [t]ell Cockcroft and Maud Ray Kent." The latter was initially thought to be a secret coded message. After the war it was learned that a certain Maud Ray of Kent had once served as a governess in the Bohr household. The name evidently was adopted (and the periods inserted after each letter) as a means of disguising the nature of the committee's work. The M.A.U.D Committee first served as a subcommittee of a group set up under Sir Henry Tizard to advise the British government on scientific issues related to air warfare. See Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, esp. chap. 2. 14 "The M.A.U.D Reports," appendix 2, in Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy,

39415 An extract from The History of Explosives, as quoted in "The M.A.U.D Reports," Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, 396. 16 Ibid., 398. The committee's recommendation respecting collaboration with the still neutral United States ran into heavy weather with the British military. By the time a decision to proceed was reached, the United Kingdom had lost its best opportunity to participate in a joint nuclear program on a footing of equality.

144 Notes to pages 20-7 17 Some have suggested that Werner Heisenberg, with Hahn and Strassman among the most distinguished German physicists to remain in Rider's Germany, deliberately led die German program into several dead-ends, acting from his anti-Nazi convictions. Others are inclined to attribute the account to Heisenberg's postwar efforts to distance himself from the Nazi regime. CHAPTER THREE

1 A good, succinct history of tripartite wartime relations in nuclear matters can be found in Stacey's Arms, Men and Governments 514-28. Eayrs' In Defence of Canada, 258-72, and Eggleston's Canada's Nuclear Story, 29-102, are also important sources on the Canadian dimension of the relationships. 2 Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, 133-4. 3 King, Mackenzie King Record, vol. i, 413. 4 To the chagrin of London, however, the step did nothing to improve British access to Canadian uranium during the war. The Americans moved promptly and energetically to secure the entire Canadian production of uranium oxide. 5 Betty Lee, "The Atom Secrets," Globe Magazine, 28 October 1961, as quoted in Bothwell, Nucleus, 17. 6 The feasibility of a weapon depended crucially on whether each fission of a nucleus would yield more or less than one additional neutron. Below one, the reaction would die out; above one, the reaction, granting that certain other conditions were met, could become self-sustaining. This "chain reaction" of fissioning nuclei, growing exponentially, would occur almost instantaneously and would be accompanied by a vast release of energy. (It would not, however, result in a nuclear explosion; many problems of weapons structure and engineering would first have to be solved.) Early experimentation and calculation, principally by the Halban-Kowarski team, while still at Cambridge, had indicated a neutron yield of more than one. Fermi's success at Stagg Field in having an atomic pile generate a chain reaction was the first demonstration that an explosive device was in fact feasible. 7 Eggleston, Canada's Nuclear Story, 67. 8 It would emerge after the war that the Americans had carefully weighed the several options open to diem, ranging from complete and unlimited exchange of information in research and development, through exchanges restricted to those pertinent to the war effort (in which the Americans might reasonably expect to gain as much as they gave), to a complete embargo on all cooperation. The British, rather wistfully, imagined that the blockage had occurred somewhere in the military or scientific bureaucracy; in fact, Roosevelt himself had approved the option selected. See Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, 154-5. 9 As quoted in Stacey, Arms, Men and Governments, 522.

145 N°tes to pages 28-33 10 The full text of the Quebec Agreement is reproduced in Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, appendix 4, 439—40. 11 Ibid., 440. 12 The reference to "pilot pile" needs to be placed in context. It seems to have been understood by all concerned that the endeavour would be the main heavy water project, the one major avenue to the production of fissile material that remained (or so the Canadians and British thought) to be thoroughly explored. Dr Chadwick suggested to CJ. Mackenzie in February that the endeavour would eventually cost around $50 million, a substantial resource commitment at the time. 13 "Letter and Memorandum from Acting President of National Research Council to Minister of Munitions and Supply," 10 April 1944, Documents on Canadian External Relations (DCER) , 1944, doc. 594, 961. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 "Extract from Minutes of Cabinet War Committee," 21 April 1944, DCER, 1944, doc. 595,965. 18 Stacey, Arms, Men and Governments, 527. The British historian cited is Margaret Gowing. 19 Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, 267. My assessment of the relative roles of the two countries may be overly simplistic. In August 1945 General Groves told George Bateman, Howe's representative in Washington, that "the U.S. and Canadian partnership is much more important to the U.S. than the U.S.-U.K. partnership." It may well be that this statementwas less a careful evaluation of each country's contributions than a reflection of Groves's desire to reinforce American access to Canadian uranium. In a confidential document of 1946 subsequently published in the Foreign Relations of the United States series, however, Groves placed quite a modest value on the British contribution to the Manhattan project - President Truman's public statement of 1945 notwithstanding. 20 King, Mackenzie King Record, vol. 2, 314. The date of the conversation with the British high commissioner, Malcolm MacDonald, is given as 24 February 1945. 21 "Extract from Minutes of Combined Policy Committee," 4 July 1945, DCER, 1945, doc. 603, 973. 22 "Statement by President Truman," 6 August 1945, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1945, vol. 6, 623. 23 Ibid., 624. 24 Churchill's statement, like Truman's, was widely reported in the press of the day. The British texts are reproduced in full in "Statements by the Prime Minister and Mr. Churchill on the Atomic Bomb, 6 August 1945," appendix i, in Gowing, Independence and Deterrence, vol. i, 14—18.

146 Notes to pages 34-41 25 26 27 28

Ottawa EveningJournal, 8 August 1945. Statement by C.D.Howe, as quoted by the Globe and Mail, 7 August 1945. Ibid. Ibid. CHAPTER FOUR

1 2 3 4 5 6

These statistics are drawn from Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, 380-2. Ottawa EveningJournal, 7 August 1945. King, Mackenzie King Record, vol. 2, 447. Ibid., 451. Globe and Mail, 7 August 1945. "Minutes of Cabinet Committee on Defence Questions," 13 August 1945, Cabinet Defence Committee Conclusions, vol. i, National Archives of Canada (NA), RG2, vol. 2748. 7 "Memorandum from Associate Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs to Prime Minister," 18 August 1945, DCER 1945, doc. 609, 977. Wrong's procedure of writing directly to the prime minister may now seem a little odd to the structurally minded. It should be recalled, however, that King served as his own secretary of state for external affairs (effectively foreign minister) for most of his years in office. Not until Louis St Laurent was appointed SSEA were the two portfolios separated. 8 Ibid., 977-8.

9 Ibid., 978. 10 Ibid. 11 "Memorandum from G. de T. Glazebrook to Hume Wrong," 25 August 1945, covering thejenness analysis. DCER 1945, doc. 610, 979. 12 Ibid., 980. "Memorandum from Chief, Topographical Section, to Canadian Joint Intelligence Committee," 20 August 1945. Jenness went on to argue that the era of large armies and navies was over and to urge the immediate and complete revision of military intelligence services to get the best possible "fix" on future strategic threats, a position that Maurice Pope, among others, found overblown. It was Jenness's analysis, however, that would prove to be influential in the years ahead. 13 "Memorandum by First Secretary, Department of External Affairs," 2 September 1945, DCER, 1945, doc. 614, 989. The "first secretary" is identified in subsequent exchanges as Charles Ritchie. 14 "Memorandum from Senior Canadian Army Member, PJBD, to Associate Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs," 21 September 1945, DCER, 1945, doc. 616, 992. 15 Ibid., 993. 16 "Reply by Acting President, National Research Council, to Questionnaire Prepared by Clerk of Privy Council and Acting Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs," 29 October 1945, DCER, 1945, doc. 627, 1006.

147 Notes to pages 41-5 17 18 19 20 21

Ibid., 1006-7. Ibid., 1008. Ibid. Ibid. "Memorandum by First Secretary, Department of External Affairs," 6 November 1945, DCER, 1945, doc. 628, 1012. 22 "Text of a Radio Broadcast by Colin Gibson to His Constituents in Hamilton, Ontario," 25 October 1945, contained in National Defence file "PostHostilities - Strategic Implications of Atomic Energy Development," NA, RG24, vol. 22327. 23 Ibid. 24 "Memorandum from DCGS (A) to cos, 24 October 1945," contained in National Defence file, "Post-Hostilities - Strategic Implications of Atomic Energy Development," NA, RG24, vol. 22327. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 For a detailed account of the Gouzenko affair that effectively captures the atmosphere of the day, see Hyde, Atom Bomb Spies. 28 King, Mackenzie King Record, vol. 3, 9-10. 29 Ibid., 11. 30 Ibid., 19. Volume 2 of the Record contains several entries dealing with King's earlier exchanges with Roosevelt on the subject. See esp. 326-7. 31 Ibid., 30. 32 Ibid. 33 "Memorandum" of 9 October 1945, apparently drafted within the Canadian High Commission in London, reporting on Robertson's conversation with officials of the British Dominions Office, Foreign Office, and Mi-5. DCER, i945.doc. 1237, 1992. 34 In the end eighteen people were tried on the basis of Gouzenko's revelations. Of these, eight were sentenced to prison, one was fined, and nine were acquitted. Several of those convicted had had some association with the Anglo-Canadian atomic project. In Britain, Alan Nunn May was arrested and convicted. Another member of the original British team, Bruno Pontecorvo, escaped detection. After returning to the United Kingdom, he eventually defected to the Soviet bloc. (For details, see Hyde, Atom Bomb Spies, 49-92.) Others, however, have challenged this interpretation. In Cold War Canada, Whitaker and Marcuse argue (91) that Mackenzie King exploited the event to bolster his role on the international scene. "Nothing in the activities of the Canadian scientists and technicians apprehended ... justified the inflated 'atomic spy ring' label that was (and has continued to be) attached to accounts of the affair." 35 Whatever interpretation of Gouzenko future historians endorse, the episode severely strained Canada-Soviet relations. The Soviet ambassador to

148 Notes to pages 46-8

36

37 38 39

40 41 42

43 44 45

Canada departed Ottawa and was not replaced. Dana Wilgress, the Canadian ambassador in Moscow finished out his posting but, like his Soviet counterpart, saw his position remain vacant following his departure. In April 1946 the embassy in Moscow advised against any consideration of a possible visit by Mackenzie King and reported on a "ferocious attack" on the Canadian prime minister in the Soviet media. Several months later, in light of the findings of the Canadian judicial inquiry, the Soviet embassy in Ottawa was told by the Canadian authorities to withdraw six mission members. In 1948 Lester Pearson gave some consideration to simply shutting down the Canadian mission in Moscow due to the systematic harassment of Canadian and other Western diplomatic personnel. Not until after Stalin's death in 1953 were diplomatic relations between Canada and the USSR restored at ambassadorial level. Brooke Claxton, minister of national defence for much of the period, kept a special file on Soviet media attacks on Canada and Canadian political figures. For details, see the Brooke Claxton Papers, NA, MGga, 85, vol. 98. "Atomic Energy Agreed Declaration by the President of the United States, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and the Prime Minister of Canada," 15 November 1945. Reproduced in full in House of Commons Debates (Debates), 1945, 2133. Ibid. Eayrs, Peacemaking and Deterrence, 279. "Memorandum by Ambassador in United States, 'Canadian Memorandum on Atomic Warfare,' " 8 November 1945, annexed to Washington Embassy despatch 2714 of 21 November, DCER, 1945, doc. 633, 1027. Ibid., 1029. Ibid., 1024. The notion of "international control of atomic weapons" had been current for some time. In 1944, well before the bombs were used, Niels Bohr called on both Roosevelt and Churchill to share with them his increasingly grave concerns respecting the long-term political implications of building an atomic weapon (a feat to which his theoretical and experimental work would contribute so greatly). Roosevelt seems to have received him courteously but to have ignored his advice, while Churchill evidently was openly dismissive. (See Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, 346-62.) Interestingly, the same day Pearson put pen to paper, one of his officers at the Washington embassy concluded in an independent analysis, "It would seem therefore that international control of the A-Bomb by the UNO is impracticable." DCER, 1945, doc. 629, 1018. "Agreement between United States, Great Britain and Canada," Washington, 16 November 1945, DCER ,1945, doc. 630, 1018. Gowing, Independence and Deterrence, vol. i, 77. See, for example, A. Steiner's "Canada: The Decision to Forego the Bomb," as recounted in Sisto, "Nuclear Arms Race," 53.

149 Notes to pages 48-60 46 "Extract from Cabinet Conclusions," 17 November 1945, DCER, 1945, doc. 631, 1019-20. For the full record see NA, RG2, vol. 2637, series A s (a), microfilm reel T-23&4. 47 "Diaries of CJ. Mackenzie," entry for 17 November 1945, in the CJ. Mackenzie Papers, NA, MG3O, 8122, vol. 2. 48 Speech by D. King Hazen, 22 October 1945, Debates, 1945, 1380. 49 Ibid., 2134. 50 Ibid., 2959. 51 "Canadian Information Service Statement, August 13, 1945," appendix 8 in Smyth, Atomic Energy, 288. 52 Debates, 1945, 3638. 53 Ibid., 3641. 54 Ibid., 3642. 55 Ibid., 3644. 56 Ibid., 3645. 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid., 3646. 59 Ibid., 3647. 60 Ibid., 3649. 61 Diaries of CJ. Mackenzie, entries for 13 November 1945, NA, MG3O, Bi22, vol. 2. CHAPTER FIVE

1 See, for example, Legault and Fortmann, Diplomacy of Hope,esp. chap. 2 and Eayrs, Peacemaking and Deterrence, esp. chap. 5. 2 Quoted in Swettenham, McNaughton, vol. 3, 91. 3 Quoted in Ignatieff, "General A. G. L. McNaughton," reproduced in Swettenham, McNaughton vol. 3, 128. 4 See, for example, C.D. Howe's introduction of the draft legislation in Debates, 3 June 1946, 2105-8. 5 P. Pringle andj. Spigelman, The Nuclear Barons, (New York, 1981), as quoted in Bothwell, Eldorado, 235-6. 6 Ibid., 201. 7 "Our Army of the Future - As Influenced by Atomic Weapons," 2 January 1946.^1/5, 1946, vol. i, 1198. 8 Ibid., 1203. 9 "The Chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy (Hickenlooper) to the Secretary of State," 29 August 1947. FRUS, 1947, vol. i, 833. Hickenlooper went on to urge the immediate rescinding of the Quebec Agreement obligation respecting prior consultation and the transfer to the United States of Britain's uranium stockpile, hardly the approach of someone prepared to contemplate his country's relinquishing its atomic weapons monopoly.

150 Notes to pages 60-2 10 Swettenham, McNaughton, vol. 3, 124, drawn from a personal interview in 1965 with General McNaughton. 11 Quoted in Cowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, 360. 12 "Ambassador in United States to Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs," 4 December 1945. DCER, 1945, doc. 641, 1046. His suggestion was not accepted. Associated with the CPC was a subordinate body, the Combined Development Trust (CDT), that sought to identify and secure known sources of relevant raw materials (notably uranium and thorium) and allocate them between the United States and the United Kingdom. While Canada sat on the CDT, in somewhat ambiguous fashion, its chief interest was in limiting any CDT claim to a say in the management or disposition of Canadian uranium resources (for which the trust showed no disposition to pay). Pearson's unease seems to have arisen from Ottawa's attempt to claim a full voice in CPC matters while blocking any CDT role respecting Canadian uranium. 13 To judge from Gowing's work, the contrast between Britain's public support for the international control of atomic energy and its private decision to build a facility to produce fissile material may have been a little less glaring than it now appears. The design and construction of such a plant was a long-term project and was justified as simple prudence, in the absence of an effective control system. It was also thought at the time that plutonium could eventually have peaceful applications, notably as a reactor fuel. (This view was particularly strong in the years when uranium was still considered a very scarce material.) There are indications in Gowing's work that British policymakers recognized that success in the UNAEC would raise several issues respecting the United Kingdom program. That said, it is difficult to avoid the impression that the UNAEC played a very small part, if any, in British calculations, that it impeded in no way the pursuit of an independent arsenal, and that its failure was greeted in some quarters with a measure of relief. 14 Diaries of CJ. Mackenzie, NA, MG3O B122, vol. 2, entry for 14 February 1946. Cockcroft, a British subject, had replaced Halban as head of the Anglo-Canadian project and had been instrumental in reinvigorating it following the Quebec Agreement. 15 The u.s. administration acknowledged that it could not block Britain from proceeding with its plans. Washington, however, would have much preferred to see British production facilities - and strategic materials - located in Canada, an argument that it would continue to make for several years in the continuing transatlantic exchanges on nuclear matters. 16 "Director General, Washington Office, Department of Reconstruction and Supply, to Minister of Reconstruction and Supply," 15 April 1946. DCER, 1946, doc. 272, 422. 17 Ibid., 423.

151 Notes to pages 62-8 18 "Howe to Bateman," 13 May 1946, quoted in Eayrs, Peacekeeping and Deterrence, 304. 19 "High Commissioner of Great Britain to Prime Minister," 28 November 1946. DCER, 1946, doc. 301, 478. 20 "Memorandum from Secretary to the Cabinet to Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs," 29 November 1946. DCER, 1946, doc. 302, 478-80. 21 "Political Appreciation of the Objectives of Soviet Foreign Policy," 30 November 1946, in "Working Papers for Use in Discussions with the United States," 6 December 1946. DCER, 1946, doc. 994, 1704. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid., 1706. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid., 1706-7. 27 The mystery of the fainting tank crews was solved once Solandt determined that the gasses generated when the main tank gun was fired, rather than being vented to the exterior, were being forced back into the turret - half asphyxiating the crew members. Solandt would go on to become a major figure in Canadian scientific and industrial circles in the years ahead. (For more details see Canadian Encyclopedia, vol. 3, 1731.) 28 "Policy and Plans for Defence Research in Canada." Summary of Report contained in Dr O.M. Solandt, "Speeches and Reports," NA, RG24, DRB vol. 2425. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. 31 Solandt would revise his views with the advent of thermonuclear weapons. In an address to DRB personnel in 1954 he noted that although "welldistributed" conventional ordnance could achieve damage equal to that caused by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki weapons, hydrogen bombs "introduce a scale of destruction that is completely new to mankind. They make it possible to put a major city out of action." (Seventh Anniversary Address, August 1954, in "Speeches and Reports," NA, RG24, DRB vol. 2425.) He also indulged in some gallows humour when he noted elsewhere that after plotting the probable circles of destruction that an H-bomb would inflict on Ottawa, the only comfort he could draw was that it seemed a very small city on which to expend such a very large bomb. 32 Bercuson, True Patriot, 154. 33 The synopsis offered in the text is drawn from two memos entitled "Re: Defence Policy" (7 January 1947) and "Observations on the Defence Needs of Canada" (February 1947) contained in the Brooke Claxton Papers, NA, MG32 65, vol. 122. Bercuson's True Patriot contains a more detailed and searching treatment in chap. 9, "Revamping National Defence," 153-7434 "Re: Defence Policy."

152 Notes to pages 68-77 35 "Observations on the Defence Needs of Canada." 36 Letter dated 3 March 1947 from ADP Heeney to Claxton, in the Claxton Papers, NA, MG32 65, vol. 122. 37 Ibid. 38 Claxton may have had his own doubts respecting the utility of nuclear weapons. I came across "The Atom and the Sovereign State," the rather chilling parody of Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter" that is included with the illustrations at the beginning of this book, among Claxton's personal papers on "atomic energy" in NA, MG32 65, vol. 128. 39 "Memorandum for Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs, Secretary to the Cabinet, and Representative, Delegation to the Atomic Energy Commission of the United Nations," 21 October 1947. DCER, 1947, doc. 278, 521. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. The term "nuclear fuel" regularly occurs in the documents of this period, usually to denote fissile material. 43 Ibid., 522. 44 "Memorandum from Secretary to the Cabinet to Office of the Undersecretary of State for External Affairs," 30 October 1947. DCER, 1947, doc. 280, 526-7. 45 Ibid., 526. 46 "Ambassador in United States to Secretary of State for External Affairs," 5 December 1947. DCER, 1947, doc. 286, 542. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid., 543. 49 "Secretary of State for External Affairs to Ambassador in United States," 10 December 1947. DCER, 1947, doc. 288, 546. 50 Ibid., 547. 51 Diaries of CJ. Mackenzie, NA, MG3O B122 vol. 2, entry for 23 December !94752 "Ambassador in United States to Secretary of State for External Affairs," 7 January 1948. DCER, 1948, doc. 568, 872. 53 Ibid. 54 "Memorandum by Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs," 13 January 1948. DCER, 1947, doc. 292, 557. CHAPTER SIX

1 "Minister of Trade and Commerce to Combined Policy Committee," 20 September 1949. DCER, 1949, doc. 491, 834. Italics in original. 2 "Extract from Minutes of Meeting of Advisory Panel on Atomic Energy," 4 April 1949. DCER, 1949, doc. 482, 825.

153 Notes to pages 77-81 3 See the David A. Keyes Papers, NA, MG3O 359, esp. vol. 4. Also relevant are the bimonthly internal progress reports that Keyes prepared on the Chalk River project as a whole during the period 1947-56. The latter offer some fascinating insights into the trials and triumphs of Canada's premier nuclear research facility. Ruth Fawcett's biography of W.B. Lewis, Nuclear Pursuits, also sheds much light on the enterprise, particularly on the informal network of international contacts and relationships that quickly developed. 4 "Prime Minister of United Kingdom to Prime Minister," 21 July 1949. DCER, 1949, doc. 484, 827. The British put on a full-court press to secure Canadian cooperation. A week after the PM-IO-PM approach, the British military chiefs asked their Canadian counterparts to weigh in on military grounds in support of NRU. (See file, "Chairman, Chiefs of Staff, Atomic Energy 1946-54," in NA, RG24, vol. 20774.) London need not have worried. At Howe's request (as acting PM) a reply went forward expressing a readiness to cooperate and indicating that a "reserve capacity could be quickly made available from our present pile, and this we freely offer." 5 For a discussion of American nuclear policy development in this period, see Schilling, Hammond, and Snyder, Strategy, Politics and Defence Budgets, esp. Hammond's "NSC-68: Prologue to Rearmament." 6 FRUS, 1949, vol. i. The section "Atomic Energy" (419-630) contains several internal American documents pertinent to this episode. 7 "Secretary of State for External Affairs to Permanent Delegation to United Nations," 14 October 1949. DCER, 1949, doc. 467, 798. 8 Ibid. 9 While the Soviet test encouraged the United States to develop closer relations with its nuclear allies, it also significantly influenced the American decision to proceed with the development of thermonuclear weapons. 10 "Ambassador in United States to Secretary of State for External Affairs," 21 October 1949. DCER, 1949, doc. 494, 841-2. 11 Ibid., 842-3. 12 "Memorandum by Ambassador in United States," 19 October 1949. DCER, 1949, doc. 493, 840. 13 "Minutes of Meeting of Advisory Panel on Atomic Energy," 9 November 1949. DCER, 1949, doc. 496, 847. Italics in original. 14 Ibid., 849. Italics in original. 15 The Canadian military's downplaying of the offensive significance of possible Canadian bases is very curious. Brian Cuthbertson, in Canadian Military Independence, quotes (29) an American record of bilateral defence discussions to show that as early as 1946 the U.S. military had already signaled the importance they attached to Goose Bay. It was seen as the "only suitable base for very heavy bombardment groups and in fact could be said to be the most important all-round strategic air base in the Western Hemisphere." ("Memorandum of Defence Conversations, 1946," in the Foreign

154 Notes to pages 81~5 Relations of the United States, 1946, 73.) Still earlier, Maurice Pope had foreseen the strategic importance of "the Rock" when he wrote, in September 1945, "the desolate lands of Newfoundland are closer by 1,000 miles to possible trans-Atlantic targets than North American targets of importance are to European launching sites. The point lends added interest to Canadian and American defence interest in Newfoundland." (DCER, 1945, doc. 616, 994.) Advances in manned bomber, and later missile, technology would eventually reduce the strategic significance of Canadian air bases. For some years, however, they were an important component of the intricate, and at times strained, continental defence relationship. 16 "Minutes of Meeting of Advisory Panel on Atomic Energy," 9 November 1949. DCER, 1949, doc. 496, 849. 17 Ibid., 850. 18 "Memorandum from Under-Secretary of State of External Affairs to Secretary of State for External Affairs," 13 December 1949. DCER, 1949, doc. 502, 859. 19 "Ambassador in United States to Secretary of State for External Affairs," 31 December 1949. DCER, 1949, doc. 504, 863. 20 As he may well have been. H.M. Hyde, in his analysis of Soviet atomic espionage in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom writes (Atom Bomb Spies, 222), "summing up, the most dangerous and damaging of the atom bomb spies was undoubtedly Klaus Fuchs, followed in a lesser degree by Alan Nunn May, and to some extent by Donald Maclean." 21 It is intriguing to speculate on another possible link between the Fuchs affair and the nuclear alliance initiative. The Soviets would have been well informed, through Donald Maclean if through no others, of the state of transatlantic nuclear relations. One suspects that they received more and better information than did most Canadian cabinet ministers. What better way to dynamite a threatening Western initiative than to use Fuchs to show the Americans, once again, that their allies could not be trusted to protect their secrets? Alas for the partisans of what might be styled the "James Bond approach" to international relations, British security first started to suspect Fuchs immediately after the first Soviet atomic test, about the same time as the nuclear alliance initiative was beginning to become active among the three capitals. CHAPTER SEVEN

1 "Extract from Minutes of Meeting of Advisory Panel on Atomic Energy," 4 April 1949. DCER, 1949, doc. 482, 824. 2 David Keyes Papers, NA, MG3O 859, vol. 5. 3 Report to the House: Special Committee Appointed to Examine into the Operations of the Atomic Energy Control Board, "First and Final Report," 8 December 1949, House of Commons, Second Session, 1949.

155 Notes to pages 86-92 4 "Minutes of the Meeting of the American Members of the Combined Policy Committee," Washington, 25 April 1950. FRUS, 1950, vol. i, 549. 5 Debates, 31 October 1949, 1272. 6 "A Five-Year Plan for Defence Research and Development, 1950-1954, April 1950, Annexure o," contained in Dr O.M.Solandt's "Speeches and Reports" NA, RG24 DRB, vol. 2425. 7 Thirty-Fourth Annual Report of the National Research Council, 1950-51, 9-10. Italics added. 8 "Minister of Trade and Commerce to Minister of Finance," 16 September 1950. DCER, 1950, doc. 857, 1519. 9 "Minister of Finance to Minister of Trade and Commerce," 14 October 1950. DCER, 1950, doc. 858, 1520. Cabinet duly authorized the NRU project on 13 December. Perhaps to refute Abbott's interpretation of the project, Howe justified NRU to his colleagues as desirable, not only from a military perspective but because of the "purely commercial uses which are gradually being found for atomic energy." 10 "Minutes of Meeting of Advisory Panel on Atomic Energy," 10 November 1950. DCER, 1950, doc. 859, 1522. 11 Ibid., 1523. 12 Ibid. Italics in original. Arneson was the special advisor on atomic matters within the State Department and one of Canada's chief interlocutors on nuclear issues. 13 Ibid. 14 "Memorandum by Deputy Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs," 9 December 1950, included in DCER, 1950, doc. 184, 268-83. Canada had despatched three destroyers to Korean waters during the summer of 1950 and had lent a squadron of transport aircraft to the United States. The Canadian ground contingent sailed for Korea on 25 November, the day before the Chinese intervened in force. Over 30,000 Canadians saw active duty in Korea during the conflict; some i ,800 were killed or wounded. 15 "Ambassador in United States to Secretary of State for External Affairs," 4 December 1950. DCER, 1950, doc. 177, 256. 16 Ibid., 257. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 "Memorandum from Head Defence Liaison (i) Division to Undersecretary of State for External Affairs," 16 May 1951. DCER, 1951, doc. 692, 1324. 20 "Ambassador in United States to Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs," 10 April 1951. DCER, 1951, doc. 689, 1317. 21 Ibid., 1319. 22 Ibid. 23 "Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs to Ambassador in United States," 4 May 1951. DCER, 1951, doc. 691, 1323.

156 Notes to pages 92-107 24 Ibid. 25 "Discussion of u.s. SAC Projects on May 17, Held in Minister's Office," 22 May 1951. DCER, 1951, doc. 693, 1327-8. Italics in original. 26 "Report of the Second Meeting between Representatives of the Canadian and United States Governments to Assess the World Situation and the Risk of War, i4june 1951," included in DCER, 1951, doc. 699, 1358. 27 Ibid., 1359. 28 Ibid., 1360. 29 Ibid. CHAPTER EIGHT 1 "Address to the Manitoba Chamber of Mines," by C.J. Mackenzie, autumn 1949, as quoted in Eggleston, Canada's Nuclear Story, 265. This section draws heavily on chaps. 15-19 of Eggleston's work. 2 Eggleston, Canada's Nuclear Story, 263. 3 AECL Annual Report, 1963/64, 19. 4 AECB Report, 1958/59, 10. Over 25 percent of these shipments were exported. 5 Canada Enters the Nuclear Age: A Technical History of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited as Seen from its Research Laboratories, McGill-Queen's University Press,

19976 W.B. Lewis, "AECL Contributions to Science and Engineering," reproduced as chap. 17 in Eggleston, Canada's Nuclear Story, 285. 7 Ibid., 286. 8 Ibid., 294. 9 "The M.A.U.D Reports," in Cowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, 427. 10 Ibid., 428. 11 "Memorandum by National Research Council," 7 January 1947, "Commentary on the First Report of the Atomic Energy Commission to the Security Council and its Implications for the International Control of Atomic Energy in Canada." DCER, 1947, doc. 248, 468. 12 AECB Report, 1954/55, 8. 13 Cowing, Independence and Deterrence, vol. i, 328. CHAPTER NINE

1 King, Mackenzie King Record, vol. 4, 112. 2 "Extract from Cabinet Conclusions - Meeting with Members of the United Kingdom Cabinet, January 14* 1952." DCER, 1952, doc. 670, 1085. Italics in original. 3 Ibid., 1086.

157 Notes to pages 108-16 4 Ibid. 5 This assessment is based on discussions with Dr George Lindsey, formerly with National Defence. The Chinese arsenal may contain weapons in the three to five megaton range, 150 to 200 times more powerful than the atomic bombs of 1945. 6 Debates, 1952/53, 17 February 1953, 2010. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid., 2011. 9 Ibid. 10 Special Committee on the Operations of Government in the Field of Atomic Energy, "Proceedings," 25 March 1953, 48-9. 11 Special Committee, "Report to the House," 9 May 1953, 117. 12 Ibid. 13 "Ambassador in United States to Secretary of State for External Affairs," 28 August 1953. DCER, 1953, doc. 704, 1066. 14 Ibid., 1067. 15 "Memorandum from Acting Under-Secretary for External Affairs, to Secretary of State for External Affairs," 5 October 1953. DCER, 1953, doc. 1004, 1468-9. 16 Jockel, North American Defence, esp. 35. 17 Snyder, "The 'New Look' of 1953," in Schilling, Hammond, and Snyder, Defence Budgets, 436. 18 "Courses at Joint Atomic Biological and Chemical School," contained in file, National Defence 3310-84^9, vol. 9, Army 1954-57, NA, RG24, vol. 7716. 19 Ibid. 20 "Ambassador in United States to Secretary of State for External Affairs," 7 November 1953. DCER, 1953, doc. 725, 1103-4. 21 O.M. Solandt, "Seventh Anniversary Address," 28, in "Speeches and Reports 1942-1955," NA, RG24, DRB, vol. 2425. 22 Ibid. 23 "Extract from Letter from Delegation to the North Adantic Council to Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs [23 December 1953], Report on the Ministerial Meeting of the North Adantic Council, December 14-16, 1953, Held at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris." DCER, 1953, doc. 546, 822. 24 "Memorandum by Department of External Affairs [22 December 1953], President Eisenhower's Speech of December 8 before the United Nations General Assembly." DCER, 1953, doc. 353, 490. 25 "Memorandum by European Division [November 1954], Relations with the USSR: A Re-assessment." DCER, 1954, doc. 693, 1575. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 As quoted in Eayrs, Growing Up Allied, 252.

158 Notes to pages 117-26 29 "Memorandum by L.B. Pearson for the Prime Minister, United StatesDefence Policy, 2 February 1954," annexed to Eayrs, Growing Up Allied, as doc. 5, 381. 30 Ibid., 382. 31 "Cabinet Defence Committee Conclusions," vol. 6, meeting of 10 June 1954. NA, RG2, vol. 2749. 32 As quoted in Eayrs, Growing Up Allied, 257. 33 Ibid., 257-8. 34 "Draft Memorandum for Cabinet [7 December 1954], Future NATO Defence Planning in Light of the Effect of New Weapons." Attachment to DCER, 1954, doc. 368, 755. 35 "Chairman, Canadian Section, PJBD to Secretary of State for External Affairs," 22 January 1954. DCER, 1954, doc. 446, 967. 36 "Report by Joint Planning Committee to Chiefs of Staff Committee," 15 June 1954, attached to doc. 445, DCER, 1954, 961-2. 37 Ibid., 963. 38 "The Air Defence of North America," undated attachment to doc. 486, dated 8 December 1954, DCER, 1954, 1059-60. 39 "Foulkes to Claxton," 22 September 1955, Claxton Papers, NA, MG32 85, vol. 223. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. CHAPTER TEN

1 2 3 4 5 6

Debates, 7 April 1954, 3854. Ibid., 2 June 1954, 5397. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 5400. Indeed, autonomy would remain a major characteristic of the Canadian nuclear power program, in part due to the independence of its heavy water reactors from the uranium enrichment facilities of the major weapons states (access to which is a sine qua non for a civilian power program that relies on light water reactors). 7 Bothwell, Eldorado, 383. 8 "Extract from Minutes of Meeting of Advisory Panel on Atomic Energy," 2 November 1954. DCER, 1954, doc. 512, 1148. 9 Agreement for Co-operation Concerning Civil Uses of Atomic Energy between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America, signed at Washington, 15 June 1955. Canada Treaty Series, 1955, no. 15, 2.

159 Notes to pages 127-37 10 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19

Ibid., article 13, 16. Ibid., article 11 B, 16. Debates, 20 June 1955, 4977"Chairman, Joint Chiefs - Atomic Energy," vol. 2, April-November 1954, NA, RG24, vol. 20774. Ibid. Agreement between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America for Cooperation Regarding Atomic Information for Mutual Defence Purposes, signed at Washington, 15 June 1955. Canada Treaty Series 1955, no. 16, 2. Ibid., italics added. E.g., in the renegotiated agreement of 1959. See Canada Treaty Series, 1959, no. 16. For a discussion of Canadian nuclear arms and roles from 1963 to 1984, see Clearwater, Canadian Nuclear Weapons. National Security Council policy paper 5822 of 12 December 1958, "Certain Aspects of u.s. Relations with Canada," quoted in Cox, "Canada and NORAD," 27.

20 Ibid., 28. 21 Debates, 1959, 20 February 1959, 1223. CHAPTER ELEVEN 1 2 3 4 5

Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life, 288-9. Gowing, Independence and Deterrence, vol. i, 184. Holmes, Shaping of Peace, vol. i, 219. Eayrs, Peacemaking and Deterrence, 138. Ibid., esp. 138-67. The individual sentences cited appear on 138, 152, and 162. 6 Schell, Fate of the Earth, part i, 3-96. While it would be less evocative, to say that a post-exchange Canada would be "a constitutional monarchy of insects and grass," would probably offer as accurate a description of what would survive. While the total explosive force of the major arsenals has come down in the last ten to fifteen years, under the impact of various arms-limitation initiatives, it remains high enough to ensure that any future full-scale nuclear hostilities would more closely resemble an extinction event than did the world wars that the twentieth century has known. Moreover, the process of "horizontal proliferation" continues to increase the number of states with an independent capacity to wage war with nuclear weapons. Witness the recent Indian and Pakistani actions. 7 "Report on the Atomic Bomb Tests at Bikini, July 1946," by Air Vice Marshall Stedman, contained in DEA, file 2Oi-c (s), "Atomic Bomb Tests 1946-47," NA, RG25-

160 Notes to pages 137-9 8 Ibid. 9 The shift was as sizeable as it was abrupt. In their Victory 1945, Morton and Granatstein estimate the cost of programs intended "to cushion the shock of returning to peace" at $3.12 billion (133). With the entire Canadian GNP in 1945 estimated at $10 to $12 billion, the commitments amounted to something between a quarter and a third of the country's entire output. The impact on defence spending was felt immediately. D J. Bercuson treats in detail the cabinet battles that Brooke Claxton, as minister of national defence, fought and lost in 1946-47 trying to preserve what he regarded as a core military capability: "Claxton had not been able to stop the budget slashing; the cabinet was too eager to strip away dollars from defence and apply them to the social programs that, after all, had just got the government re-elected" (TruePatriot, 169). 10 Muller, Uses of the Past, 69.

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1985Cuthbertson, Brian. 1977. Canadian Military Independence in the Age of the Superpowers. Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside. Eayrs, James. 1980. In Defence of Canada: Growing Up Allied. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. - 1972. In Defence of Canada: Peacemaking and Deterrence. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

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Eggleston, Wilfrid. 1978. National Research in Canada: The NRC 1916-1966. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin. - 1966. Canada's Nuclear Story. London: Harrap Research Publications. Fawcett, Ruth. 1994. Nuclear Pursuits: The Scientific Biography of Wilfrid Bennett Lewis. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. Foulkes, Charles. 1966. "The Complications of Continental Defence." In Neighbors Taken for Granted: Canada and the United States. Edited by L.T. Merchant. Toronto: Burns & MacEachern. Frankel, Joseph. 1979. International Relations in a Changing World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. - 1969. International Politics: Conflict and Harmony. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books. Gelly, Alain, and H.P. Tardif. 1995. Defence Research Establishment Valcartier, I 945~I995- Ottawa: Minister of Public Works and Government Services. Goodspeed, DJ. 1958. A History of the Defence Research Board of Canada. Ottawa: Queen's Printer. Gould, Stephen Jay. 1989. Wonderful Life. New York: W.W. Norton. Gowing, Margaret. 1974. Independence and Deterrence: Britain and Atomic Energy, I 945~I952- Vols. 1-2. London: Macmillan Press. - 1964. Britain and Atomic Energy, 1939-1945. London: St Martin's Press. Granatstein, J.L. 1986. Canada 1957-1967: The Years of Uncertainty and Innovation. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. (See esp. chap. 5, "The Defence Debacle, 1957-1963.") - 1975. Canada's War: The Politics of the Mackenzie King Government, 1939-1945. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Gribbin, John. 1984. In Search of Schrodinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality. Toronto: Bantam Books. Hall, H.D. 1955. North American Supply. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. Hall, H.D., and C.C. Wrigley. 1956. Studies of Overseas Supply. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. Holmes, J.W. 1979. The Shaping of Peace: Canada and the Search for World Order, I 943~I957- Vol. i. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Hyde, H. Montgomery. 1980. The Atom Bomb Spies. London: Hamish Hamilton. Ignatieff, G. 1985. The Making of a Peacemonger. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. - 1947. "General A.G.L. McNaughton; A Soldier in Diplomacy." International Journal (summer). Jockel, Joseph T. 1987. No Boundaries Upstairs: Canada, the United States and the Origins of North American Air Defence, 1945-1958. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. - 1982. "The Military Establishments and the Creation of NORAD," American Review of Canadian Studies 12, no. 3.

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164 Bibliography Thistle, Mel. 1966. The Inner Ring: The Early History of the National Research Council of Canada, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Thomson, Dale C. 1967. Louis St Laurent: Canadian. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada. Toronto Globe and Mail, 6-8 August 1945. Viotti, Paul R., and M.K Kauppi. 1987. International Relations Theory: Realism, Pluralism, Globalism. New York: Macmillan. Weinberg, Steven. 1990. The Discovery of Subatomic Particles. New York: W.H. Freeman. Whitaker, Reg, and G. Marcuse. 1994. Cold War Canada: The Making of a National Insecurity State, 1945-1957. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Canada Enters the Nuclear Age: A Technical History of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. 1997. Montreal, Kingston, London, Buffalo: McGill-Queen's University Press.

PRIMARY SOURCE COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVAL MATERIAL ANNUAL REPORTS: KEY ORGANIZATIONS Atomic Energy Control Board, Annual Reports, 1948/49-1955/56. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, Annual Reports, 1952/53, 1954/55, and 1963/64. National Research Council, Annual Reports, 1944/45-1951/52. CANADA-U.S.

ATOMIC ENERGY TREATIES

Atomic Energy: Co-operation in Civil Uses of Atomic Energy. Agreement between Canada and the United States of America, signed at Washington, 15 June 1955. Canada Treaty Series, 1955, no. 15. Ottawa: Queen's Printer. Atomic Energy: Information for Mutual Defence Purposes. Agreement between Canada and the United States of America, signed at Washington, 15 June 1955. Canada Treaty Series, 1955, no. 16. Ottawa: Queen's Printer. Atomic Energy. Agreement between Canada and the United States of America signed at Washington, 22 May 1959. Canada Treaty Series, 1959, no. 16. Ottawa: Queen's Printer. DIPLOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

Documents on Canadian External Relations (DCER). Vols. 9-20 (1942/43-54). Ottawa: Canadian Government Publishing Centre, and subsequently, Canada Communication Group. Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS). Selected years, esp. 1946, 1947, 1948, 1950, 1952-4, 1955-7. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office.

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Published Papers of the Atomic Energy Project, 1947-70. National Research Council (vols. 1-5), Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (vols. 6-24). PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES AND PROCEEDINGS

House of Commons, Debates. Official record of parliamentary debate in the Nineteenth to the Twenty-Second Parliament, (1945-1955), as well as in the Twenty-Fourth Parliament (1959). See, especially, the records for the years !945> !946. 1947. X949> !953> !954> and !955Special Committee of the House of Commons on the Operations of the Atomic Energy Control Board. Proceedings and Report. November/December, 1949. Special Committee of the House of Commons on the Operations of the Government in the Field of Atomic Energy. Proceedings and Report, February/May, !953UNPUBLISHED ARCHIVAL

MATERIAL

The National Archives of Canada (NA) contain a wealth of material in the government records (RG), as well as in the manuscript (MG) holdings. In the research phase of this work, I canvassed a wider range of holdings than those eventually used in the preparation of the text, including RG28 (Department of Munitions and Supply); RG33/62 (Records of Federal Royal Commissions); RG77 (National Research Council, Office of the President); RG134 (Eldorado Nuclear Ltd.); MG27 III B2O (C.D. Howe); MG27 ^ B21 (Colin Gibson); MG30 048 (J. Martin-Harvey); MGgo £133 (A.G.L. McNaughton); MG3O £322 (E.W. Stedman). The principal sources used in the drafting phase of the work are set out below in greater detail. RG2, Records of the Privy Council Office Series A-5 Vols. 2636-2641. Cabinet Conclusions, 1944-48, microfilm reels ^2364 and T-2365. Vols. 2748 and 2749. Cabinet Defence Committee Conclusions, vols. 1-9, 1 945-62. Vols. 2750 and 2751, Cabinet Defence Committee Documents, vols. 2-15, 1945-62. RG24, Records of the Department of National Defence Series B-I Vols. 20774. Chairman, Chiefs of Staff, Atomic Energy (correspondence and memoranda), parts i and 2, 1946-1954. Series c-i-a Vol. 22327. Post-Hostilities Implications of Atomic Energy Development, 1945-46; Post-War Planning [Army/Navy/Air Force/Joint].

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Accession 1983-84/048, Box 3515 File 8-2-7716-2. Design, Development, and Research of Atomic Weapons, Generally 1952-59, parts i and 2. Accession 1983-84/167, Box Jin File 8-2-6161-1-1. Special Weapons, ABC Warfare, Generally 1953-57. Accession 1983-84/167 Box 5018 File 8-3310-84^9. Courses at Joint Atomic, Biological, and Chemical School 1

954-57-

Series E-i-b

Vol. 5251, Defence Research Board, Atomic Energy Research, 1948-50. Vol. 6179, Atomic Energy, Effects of Atomic Bomb, 1945-54; Atomic Energy, Technical Subcommittee, 1946; Atomic Energy, Intelligence, 1946-51; Atomic Energy, United Nations Security Council Atomic Energy Commission, 1946-49. Series ¥—3 Vols. 2425 and 4243, Defence Research Board, Chairman's Records, 1946-56. RG2$, Records of the Department of External Affairs Vols. 5954, 5778. See esp. files 201-0(s), "Atomic Bomb Tests 1946-47" and 20i-r(s), "Advisory Panel (Atomic Energy) Agenda & Minutes." MGJO Bjg, Papers of Dr David A. Keyes Vols. 1-17. Vols. 4 and 5 contain much relevant correspondence, as well as progress reports on the Chalk River project 1947-56. MGJO BI22, Papers of Chalmers Jack Mackenzie Vols. 1-12. See esp. vols. 1-5 for Mackenzie's diaries and correspondence and vols. 9-12 for speeches delivered in the period 1945-63. MGJ2 BJ, Papers of Brooke Claxton

Vols. 21, 71, 72, 78, 94, 98, no, 122, 128, 132, 223. MGJ2 B6, Papers of Douglas Charles Abbott Vols. 1-4, correspondence and memoranda.

Index

Abbott, D.C., 43, 87, 155119 Acheson, Dean, 81-2, 93-4 Advisory Panel on Atomic Energy, 40, 57, 63, 87, 125; and Cadieux memo, 6971; and NRU, 76-7, 84; and St Laurent, 80-1 Alberta, 98 Agreed Declaration, 45-9, 51-3, 56, 74, 132. See also tripartite meeting alliance constant, 138 alpha ray, 13, 15 American Physical Society, 18 Anderson.J., 23-4, 27-8 Anglo-American nuclear relations, 11,22, 26, 77-8; fear of Nazi weapon, 20, 33, 86; impact on Canada, 132; Quebec Conference, 28-31; strains, 60, 62, 72, 103 Anglo-Canadian nuclear relations: origins, 24-5, 30; as Soviet target, 44-5; strains, 27, 54; and UK bomb, 77, 106-7; u - s role, 31-2; wartime project, 41, 48, 613, 98. See also Anglo-American nuclear relations Arneson, R.G., 87, 90, 92 atom, early research: Britain, 12-15; Canada, 9, 13-14; Denmark, 13, 15-18; France, 12, 16-18; Germany, 12, 1517; Italy, 16-17; Switzerland, 14;

United States, 15, 18. See also Britain, atomic project; Canadian atomic program; United States, arms project atom: early theories, 11-14, 16; potential energy, 13-14; terminology, I42~3ni atomic energy: peaceful uses, 67, 96-104, 114 Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), 71, 85-7. 95 Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB), 58, 103,123 Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), 98-9, 103 atomic nucleus, 13-17 atomic "pile," 21, 25. See also reactors atomic power, 19, 101-4, 124. See also atomic energy atomic reactors. See reactors atomic weapons, 6, 11, 33, 36, 37; Allied statements, 33-4; dynamic development, 136-7; possible control by Canada, 49, 52-3, 87-8, 129; possible storage in Canada, 80—1, 87-8; prospects, 140; as strategic weapon, 89-90, 94, 107, 111, 120-2; as tactical weapon, 83, 111-12, 118; yields, 35-6, 108, 140, 1 57n5 Atoms for Peace, 104, 108, 114. See also Eisenhower, Dwight David

i68 Index Atdee, Clement, 77; and atomic bomb, 33, 89-90; and tripartite cooperation, 45, 47, 61-2, 69, 77 Australia, 84, 107, 109 barium, 17 Baruch plan, 60, no. See also international control of atomic weapons Bateman, G., 62 Becquerel, H., 12 Bennett, W.J., 109-10 Berlin blockade, 78. See also Soviet Union beta ray, 13, 14, 16 Bikini test. S^UNAEC Bohr, Niels, 13, 15, 16, 18, I48n42 "Bombs for Brains," 84. See also AngloAmerican nuclear relations Bracken, J., 51 Britain: atomic project, 23-4, 26-7; decision to build weapon, 60—3, 86, 134, 15on 13; possible weapons in Canada, 80-1; weapons program, 77, 84-5, 1078. See also Anglo-American nuclear relations, Anglo-Canadian nuclear relations Bush, V., 20, 23-4 Cabinet, 48, 70, 74, 75 Cabinet Defence Committee, 30, 36-7, 43. 67, 70 Cadieux, Marcel, 69-71, 75, 92, 131 CalderHall, 103 Cambridge team. See Britain: atomic project Canada: and atom, 9-10; defence cuts, i6ong; evolving policy, 7, 10, 37-43, 49-52,69-71, 75, 109-11, 126, 128-9; as threshold country, 7, 9; and USSR, I47~8n35; World War II role, 7-8, i42ng. See also Anglo-Canadian nuclear relations Canada-u.s. nuclear relations, 125-8. See also Anglo-Canadian nuclear relations Canadian air force, 9, 42, 137 Canadian atomic program: dualism, 31, 74-7, 84-7, 109-10, 123-7; international implications, 104-5; power generation, 101-4; radioisotopes, 96-9; research, 99—101. See also AngloCanadian nuclear relations, Canadau.s. nuclear relations, Chalk River

Canadian defence thinking, 68, 112-13, 119, 127-8; on access to atomic arms, 42-3>53> H3 CANDU. See reactors Cavendish Lab, 21 Chadwick,J., 15, 16, 30 Chalk River: and Canadian program, 54, 61-2, 69, 109-10, 124-5; andDRB, 67, 86; military role, 77, 85-7; origins, 31, 34, 51; peaceful uses, 98-104 chain reaction, 18, 26, I44n6 chance: as policy factor, 132-3 character: as policy factor, 133-7 Cherwell, Lord (F.A. Lindemann), 107 China, People's Republic of, 78, 88, 94 Churchill, Winston, 22, 25, 27, 33, 38, 60, 107-8; and W.L.M. King, 29, 106-7 circumstance: as policy factor, 140 Cockcroft,J., 61, 77, I5oni4 Claxton, Brooke, 67-8, 117, 135, !52n38, i6ong; and Foulkes, 113, 120 cobalt-6o, 98-9, 109 Coldwell, M.J., 49 College de France, 21 Combined Development Trust, 69, 73-4, I5oni2 Combined Policy Committee: and AngloCanadian relations, 30-2; functions, 29; and tripartite cooperation, 32-3, 47-8, 51,61-3, 71-4, 78-9,90. See also Quebec Agreement, tripartite cooperation Commonwealth, 52, 54, 61 Conant,J.B., 23, 25-7 Congo, Belgian, 23, 32, 41, 72, 75, 76 Consolidated Mining and Smelting, 21 continental defence, 113, 119; implications for Canada 119-20. See also Claxton, B; North America Cooper, R., 4-6 Curie, Marie, and Pierre Curie, 12 Czechoslovakia, 20, 78 Dalhousie University, 97, 98 Defence Research Board (DRB), 65-6, 86, 113. See also Solandt, O.M. Denmark. See atomic research, early efforts deuterium. See heavy water Diefenbaker,John, 129 Dresden, 35 Dulles, John Foster, 114, 115-16, 120-1

169 Index EayrsJ., 46, 54, 117, 135 Eggleston, W., 97 Einstein, Albert, 14, 15 Eisenhower, Dwight David, 104, 108, 11011, 114, 116, 129 Eldorado Gold Mines, 21, 23, 95, 109, 124-5. See also uranium electron, 13 Eniwetok Atoll test, 84, no fate: as policy factor, 130-1 Fermi, Enrico, 16, 17, 26 Ford, R.A.D., 115 Foulkes, C., 42-3, 113, 120-2, 127, 135, 139. See also Claxton, Brooke France, 13, 16-18, 81, 96. See also atom: early research Fraser, G.K., 50 Frisch, Otto, 17-18, 19 Fuchs, K., 82, 83, go, 132, i54nn2O, 21. See also Soviet Union "functional idea," 8, 79, 135-6, I42ni2 Gamma ray, 13 Germany, 12, 15-17, 19-20, 117. See also atom: early research Goose Bay. See military bases in Canada Gould, S.J., 132 Gouzenko, I., 43—5, 52, 61, 82, 147— 8nn34, 35 Gowing, M., 134 graduated deterrence, 117-18. See also Pearson, Lester B. Groves, L., 26-7, 30, 59-60 Gruenther, A.M., 117, 121. See also NATO Hahn, Otto, 17 Halban, H., 18, 19, 24-5, 101-2. See also Canadian atomic program, reactors Halifax Harbour, 19, 35 Harwell, 82 H-bomb. See thermonuclear weapons heavy water, 15, 19-20, 23, 30; Canadian resources, 21, 32, 85; pile, 30-1 Heeney, A., 68, 74, 81; and advisory panel, 40, 63, 88; and Cadieux memo, 69, 71 Heisenberg, Werner, 15, I44ni7 Hickenlooper, B.B., 60, i4gng Hiroshima, 54, 59, 66, 112, 120, 136; British and Canadian roles, 32-3; casualties, 35-6

Holmes, J., 134 Howe, C.D., and atomic arms, 34, 36; advisory panel, 40, 73; Anglo-Canadian project, 23, 54, 62, 77, 107; Combined Policy Committee, 29-30, 33, 48, 61, 72, 76; influence, 138; and Parliament, 49-50, 84-6, 109, 123-5, 127 humanitarian concern: as policy factor, 139 Imperial Chemical Industries (ici), 26 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 45, 104-5 international control of atomic weapons, 38-40, 57-8, 62-3, 74-5, 107-8, 132; Canadian support for, 55, 79 isotope, 14, 15 Italy. See atom, early research Jenness, D., 39-40, 47 Joint Intelligence Committee (jic), 38-9 Joliot-Curie, Irene, and Frederic Curie, 16-18, 96, 102 Kennan, George, 71-2 Keyes, D., 77, 85, 153^ King, W.L.M., Anglo-Canadian project, 23; on atomic arms use, 32-4, 36, 53, 106-7; Gouzenko affair, 43-4; and international control, 57, 69; as leader, 8, 77, 133, 138; in Parliament, 50-1; tripartite cooperation, 29, 61, 62, 89, 139; at tripartite meeting, 41, 45, 47-9 Korean War, 83, 88, 112, 116, 139; Canadian role, 10, I55ni4; as trigger for World War III, 89, 92 Kowarski, L., 18, 19, 24, 102 Laurence, G.C., 21 Lawrence, E.O., 15 Lewis, W.B., 77, 99-100 "long haul" approach. See NATO Low, S., 52 MacDonald, M., 23 McGill Fence, 118 McGill University, 13, 21, 57, 98 Maclnnis, A., 51 Mackenzie, C.J.: and advisory panel, 40, 73, 80; on atomic arms use, 33-4; on benefits of atom, 97, 130, 138; Canadian program, 10, 40-1, 67, 76, 86-7,

170 Index 109; Combined Policy Committee, 30, 48, 61; influence, 36, 57, 133, 137-8 Maclean, D., 78, 154^120, 21. See also Gouzenko, I.; Soviet Union McMahon Act, 60, 62, 70, 79, 125; broader interpretation sought, 72, 90 McNaughton, A.G.L., 37, 57-8, 69, 118, "9 Manhattan District Project, 9, 10, 26, 109, 136 Manitoba, 98 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 118 massive retaliation, 115-17. See also Dulles, John Foster M.A.U.D. Committee, 19, 22, 32, 35, 102, MSniS May, A.N., 154^0. See also Gouzenko, I.; Soviet Union Meitner, Lise, 17-18 "Methodism light," 53 Mid-Canada Line, 118 military bases in Canada, 81, 88, 91-2, I53 n i5 military dimension: as policy factor, 138-9 Modus Vivendi, 73-4, 76, 89 Monte Bello Islands, 84 Montreal, 21, 27, 31, 98 Montreal Lab, 25, 28-9, 32 Nagasaki, 32, 66, 108, 111-12, 120, 136; casualties, 35-6; political implications, 54. See also atomic weapons, Hiroshima National Defense Research Council (NDRC), 20 National Research Council (NRC): and Canadian program, 65, 67, 86, 98, 103, 124; tripartite cooperation, 22-3, 25. See also Mackenzie, C.J. National Security Council (NSC), 78, 11112,116, 129 neutron, 15, 16 Nitze, P., 93 Non-Proliferation Treaty, 10,45, i2 9 North America, strategic position, 68; in atomic age, 110-11; after atomic war, 137, I5gn6. See also Canadian defence thinking; Claxton, Brooke; continental defence

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): and atomic weapons, 79-81, 90, 116-18, 129; Canadian bases, 91; and Soviet Union, 94, 114. See also Claxton, Brooke; Pearson, Lester B.; Dulles, John Faster NPD reactor (nuclear power — demonstration), 103 NRU reactor (National Research - Universal), 76-7, 84-5, no, 124-5, I55n9 NRX reactor (National Research Experimental), 9, 31, 61, 69, 74, 85, 98, 1034, no, 124-5 nuclear fission, 16-18 nuclear non-proliferation regime: NPT, 10,45, 129; origins, 6, 141^, I42ni6 nuclear power. See atomic power; atomic energy, peaceful uses nuclear reactors. See reactors nuclear weapons. See atomic weapons, thermonuclear weapons Ontario, 97, 98, 103 Ontario Hydro, 103 Parliament, 49-52, 75. See also Parliamentary committees on atomic energy, Howe, C.D.; King, W.L.M.; Pearson, Lester B. parliamentary committees on atomic energy, 84-5, 109-10 Pearson, Lester B.: on atomic arms use, 88-90,92, 111,116-18, 129; influence, 53, 139-40; on international control, 46-7> 57' 93-4; NATO, 114-15; Parliament, 123; tripartite cooperation, 61, 63, 69, 81, 107 Peierls, R., 19 Permanent Joint Board on Defence (pjBD),39, 71 Petawawa, 34 Plank, Max, 15 plutonium: Canadian production, 9, 69, 76-7, 86-7, 95, 124-6; in Nagasaki bomb, 32; weapons potential, 24-5 polonium, 12, 77 Pontecorvo, B., 82. See also Gouzenko, I.; Soviet Union Pope, M., 39-40 Port Hope. See Eldorado Gold Mines proton, 15, 16

171

Index

quantum mechanics, 15 Quebec Agreement, 33, 48, 60, 89, i4gng. See also tripartite cooperation Quebec Conference, 28-31, 123 Queen's University, 98 radioactivity, 12, 14 radioisotopes, 16, 6g, 96-9, 124. See also atomic energy: peaceful uses radium, 12, 21, 23, 98 RCAF. See Canadian air force reactors: CANDU, 28; NPD, 103; NRU, 767,84-5,87, no, 124-5, i55n9:NRX. 9. 31,61,69,74,85,98, 103-4, 110> 124-5; ZEEP . 9. 31. 69, 103. See also Canadian atomic program; Chalk River realpolitik, 6-7

Reid, E., 88 Ritchie, C., 41, 111, 140 Robertson, N., 44, 87-8 Roentgen, W., 12, 96 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 22, 25, 27. See also King, W.L.M. Rose, R, 52 Rosenberg affair, 83. See also Soviet Union Rutherford, Ernest, 13-15, 21, 57 St Laurent, Louis: on atomic arms, 80-1; on tripartite cooperation, 49, 73-4, 77, 106, 133, 138 Saskatchewan, 98 Savitch, P., 17 Schrodinger, G., 15 science and technology imperative: as policy factor, 137-8 Seaborg, G., 24-5 Soddy, R, 13, 14 Solandt, O.M.: and advisory panel, 80, 87; on atomic arms, 66, 113, 129, 151031; on defence research, 65-7, 86; influence, 135, 139 South Africa, 109 Soviet Union: and atomic arms, 57, 59, 78-9, 82, 107, 110-11; conventional arms edge, 121; evolving thought, 115; growing atomic strengdi, 115; and Korean War, 92; spy rings, 43, 82, 83; viewed from West, 63-5, 94, 106-7, 114. See also Gouzenko, I.; NATO; North America Stagg Field. See chain reaction

Stalin, Joseph, 59, 63-4, 115. See also Soviet Union state, 3-7, 140 Strassman, E, 17 Strategic Air Command (SAC), 91 Switzerland. S^atom: early research Taiwan, 78 thermonuclear weapons, 83-5, 108-12, 121. See also atomic weapons Thomson, J.J., 12 thorium, 38, 58, 69 Toronto, 98 Trail, 21, 25, 32 transuranic element. S^uranium-239 tripartite cooperation, 61, 69, 71; in arms production,78-82, 85 tripartite declaration. See Agreed Declaration tripartite meeting, 45-9, 89 Truman, Harry, 33-4, 45, 47, 61, 69, 88-90 United Kingdom. See Britain United Nations: and atomic arms, 37-8, 54; East-West tensions, 63-4; international control, 51, 58, 79, 107-8, 124, 135; Korean War, 88 United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC): and Bikini test, 137; in Cadieux memo, 70-1; East-West tensions, 56-8, 69, 72-3, 75; origins, 46, 56; peaceful uses, 103 United States: arms project, 22, 26, 30, 82; and atomic arms control, 56-7, 5960; British and Canadian roles, 31-3, 36-7; motivation to build bomb, 20, 86; nuclear arsenal, 107, 111-12, 116. See also Anglo-American nuclear relations, Anglo-Canadian nuclear relations, Soviet Union USSR. See Soviet Union uranium: Canadian resources, 30, 41, 54, 76, 85, 104, 124-6; in early research, 12, 16-17; scarcity, 58, 62, 72, 109; strategic value, 20-1, 32, 38, 95, no, 112; in tripartite discussions, 69, 73, 78-9 uranium boiler. See atomic power uranium bomb. See atomic weapons uranium-233, 9, 69 uranium-235, 15, 18, 24-5, 32

172 Index uranium-238, 15, 17, 18, 24-5 uranium-23g, 17 Villard.R, 13 Washington meeting. See tripartite meeting Westphalia, Treaty of, 4 Westphalian system, 3-7, 140 Wheeler, J.A., 18

Wrong, H.: and advisory panel, 57, 80-1; atomic arms use, 89, 91, 94; policy need, 37-40; tripartite cooperation, 72-4, 79 x-rays, 12, 96 ZEEP reactors (Zero Energy Experimental Pile), 9, 31,69, 103